W ^i^^t^W^I^^i^ W^i^^i^ '^i^ "^i^ '^i^ "^i^ fi'i' fk'i' ^/s^ 5 



Mk 

Mk 

Mk 
^ok 

:^!^ 



THE 



^old I?|inE? of Worth Carolina. 




OIVIPLIMENTS OF THE 



18 WALL STREET, NEW YORK CITY. 



Mk^ 

•^4^5 

Mkl 
Mkl 

Mki 

•?4^# 

•^4^2 

'^4^J 

-^4^5 
Mkt 

-^4^2 

Ukl 



*74^5 

:*!^2 

-^4^2 

Mkt 

•74^» 



u^k5 

•*4^J 

Mkt 
Mkt 

•^4^2 
•^4^« 

:*l^2 

•^4^2 

•74^2 
•^4^2 
•^4^« 

^^2 



74^ 



^!^:^!^^!^ MkMo'^^ ^s^'^ •^'^ ^^'^ ^^^^ ^^'^ ^^'^ •^'^ -^'^ •^'^ »^'^ -^^^ ^^^^ "^'^ ^^^^ '^^f* Mk -^^^ • 

•^i^ -S'4^^i^^'5'4^^i^^4^^1^^i^ ^i^^l^^i^^l'?^i^^l^^i^^i'?^1^^4^^4^ ^i^'5'l>^i^^4'?^i^^4^^4'?^i'5^^i^^4^t 




(INCORPORATED ) 



18 WALL STREET, NEW YORK. 



CAPITAL, - - - - « $2,000,000. 
Shares, $10.00 each (Non-Assessable). 



OFFICERS OF THE COMPANY. 

PRESIDENT. 

ADELBERT WILKOSZEWSKI. 
Secretary. Treasurer, 

Dr. HENRY KEYES. HENRY H. KANE. 

DIRECTORS. 

H. M. KEYES, M.D., Stapleton, S. 1. M. F. FLOWERS, New York. 
\VM. J. NODINE, Brooklyn, N. Y. CHAS. HANSON, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

A. WILKOSZEWSKI, New York. 



C^ompaijy's propi^rty. 

McDowell County, N, C. Uwharrie River, Randolph, Davidson 
- and Montgomery Counties, N. C. 



Direct Connection with all Stock Exchanges by means of Gold and Stock 
Exchange Telegraph and Ticker. 



For Particulars as to Sale of Stock and Lease of Free Claims, see pages 11 and 30. 



IMPORTANT — The proceeds of the Stock now being sold is to be 
applied solely to the purchase of Mines and Mining Land^, and for the further 
development of the Company^s properties. So resolved and guaranteed at meet- 
ing of Directors, held October 5th, 1891. 



Survey made sy Lounty Surveyor H A HenoersonX S. 



M.p of lilt Section of i our Uwliarrle River Property, ihowing number of Paying Cold Mines on Iributariei to same and owned by varions Companies. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2015 



https://archive.org/details/goldminesofnorthOOnort 



From The New York SUN, June 7, 1891 



MILLIOISrS ill aOLD and aEMS. 



A WONDERFUL NEW EL DORADO IN THE NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS. 



Diaiiioud!!! and Other Precious JStoiies, iiolA and Many Rare J^linerals Found in Mar- 
%'elous Muddy Creek Valley— AVhere Gold Dust is the Every-day Currency- 
Geological Marvels wliich Astonisli tlie Scientific Men— Gold Mines 
\%liich Have Produced More than Two Millions Eacli— Only 
Twenty-four Hours from New York— Four Men Take 
$40,000 in a Montli from the Edge of a Swamp. 
Smashing, a Monster Diamond on an Anvil to Test it Twenty-eij»lit Pound Nugget. 



Ninety-nine New Vorkers out of one hundred if 
asked where the precious metals are mined in the 
Atlantic States would probably declare off-hand that 
there is no gold mine worthy of the name east of the 
Mississippi River, and yet it is a fact that within 
twenty-four hours of this metropolis there live peo- 
ple who do their trading and pay their taxes with 
gold dust and nuggets which they have dug from the 
valleys in which they live. 

The true story of the mineral wealth of western 
North Carolina and northwestern Georgia is a record 
that seems to border so closely on the fabulous that 
it will arouse incredulity as well as astonishment. 
The easily verified features of the -narrative are 
aecond in interest only to the history of the Pacific 
coast El Dorado. The California gold excitement 
was, indeed, the principal cause of the non-develop- 
ment of the partially discovered riches of these 
eastern mountains. The war and subsequent de- 
moralization were later causes, and it has not been 
until very recently that the wealth of the region 
has been investigated by competent experts, and 
with marvelous results. Where one million has 
already been taken out by negroes and poor whites, 
with rude shovel and pan, many more millions are 
waiting to be brought to light by intelligent labor 
and adequate machinery. 

Get into a Pulman car in Jersey City, at 4:30 
o clock some afternoon, and leave the same car the 
next afternoon at Marion, the County seat of 
McDowell county in we,stern North Carolina. The 



town is about fifty miles east of Asheville, the new 
mountain resort where Vanderbilt is building his 
magnificent country mansion. It is a town in pro- 
cess of transformation just now, is Marion. It is 
enjoying a boom, and speculation in town lots is 
rife. The splendid scenery and climatic advantages 
and the completion of anew railroad are the reasons 
for the burst of prosperity, and not the mineral 
wealth hidden near by. 

A Sun reporter, who had reached Marion by the 
afternoon train, from the North, a few days ago, 
went into one of the village stores to make a small 
purchase. Bending over opposite sides of the 
counter were the shopkeeper and a customer, a 
tall, bronzed, roughly dressed countryman who 
apparently had just come in from his farm wagon. 
Between the two was a small pair of jeweler's bal- 
ances. In one pan were several small weights, and 
in the other a little heap of bright yellow grains and 
dust. 

" I can allow you only 85 cents a pennyweight for 
that dust, ' the shopkeeper was saying. 

" It's worth 95," was the reply. " There's a nug- 
get that'll weigh four pennyweights, purer than coin 
and worth more'n a dollar a weight." 

" But it isn't clean dust. It won't average over 
! 85 cents." 

The customer had picked out the goods he wanted, 
and after more haggling a bargain was struck. Then 
the shopkeeper went to his safe and brought out an 
. ordinary glass tumbler almost filled with gold dust 



2 



and nuggets. On top was a rough, porous-appear- 
ing lump, about as large as a pecan nut. The shop- 
keeper said it was worth about $15. The tumbler- 
full of gold weighed rather more than three pounds, 
and was worth about $i,ooo. It had been nearly 
six weeks in accumulating, and the owner intended 
sending it to the mint in a few days to be coined, 
according to his usual custom, A large part of his 
out-of-town trade, he said, was carried on with 
native gold as the medium of exchange. He had 
become so expert in handling the dust that he could 
tell almost at a glance where it had come from. Its 
color varied considerably. Some of it was a very 
light straw color, as though there was silver in it, 
while the other was much darker and more coppery. 
Gold is found in North Carolina in localities too 




$40,000 IN GOLD TAKEN FROM THIS SPOT. 



numerous to mention, from the central portion of 
the State almost to the Tennessee boundary. The 
yield with primitive slave labor for twenty-five 
years before the war was sufficient to keep em- 
ployed a mint at Charlotte, where more than 
$5,000,000 was coined. Yet little has been done 
with improved methods and machinery to develop 
the hidden riches of a wide extent of territory. De- 
posits have been discovered recently and tested with 
results which, if told of some newly explored corner 
of the Pacific coast, would start a fresh gold fever 
through the country. It need not be said that the 
field will be no longer neglected. Already the most 
valuable properties have been bought by strong 
holders, and late comers must make new discoveries 



for themselves, for no known rich mining lands are 
on the market in any shape. 

For several months the fame of a little valley in 
the southern part of McDowell county has been 
spreading among geologists. Prominent experts ' 
from college faculties and from abroad have visited 
it and have been amazed by what they have seen 
there. Their interest has been aroused not by the 
value of mineral wealth displayed, but by the won- 
derful variety of rare geological treasures profusely 
exposed. It is said that there is but one other spot 
in the world, and that in Australia, where so great 
a variety of geological riches has been brought to 
light in so small a space. It is an opening of the 
earth's richest treasure house at a point where neither 
glaciers nor great cyclic changes have succeeded in 
concealing the secret. The precious metals occupy 
an unimportant space in scientific estimation in the 
long list of rare things that are found there. Dia- 
monds and other gems are included among them. 
It is not surprising that when a man walked into 
Tiffany's in Union Square last winter with a dia- 
mond weighing five and one half carats, which he 
said had been found in a spring in North Carolina, 
the great jewelers politely expressed doubts about 
the truth of the story. But they believed it after 
thpir expert had visited the spot and investigated 
the whole matter, and since then Tiffany & Co. have 
bought a good many precious stones from the same 
North Carolina valley. 

Already there have been taken from this same 
little valley rubies, sapphires, beryl, moonstones, 
jasper, garnets, zircon, gold ($1,000,000 or more), 
silver, copper, platinum, lead, iron, mica, kaoline, 
besides the rare and unfamiliar minerals, no less 
than 56 on the list thus far. It is little wonder 
that enthusiastic college professors who have gone 
there to stay a day or two have remained a month 
and then gone away filled with amazement by the 
successive surprises of their visit. 

Muddy Creek Valley is the name of this spot of 
many marvels. It is a winding irregular valley, 
averaging less than half a mile wide and about ten 
miles long. It was a spot rather difficult to reach 
until about a month ago. Now the Charleston, 
Cincinnati and Chicago road runs within about two 
and one-half miles of it. Formerly it was necessary 
to drive sixteen miles from Marion over a so-called 
road, where progress could be made at the rate of 
three miles an hour if you were lucky. The trip 



from the new railroad to the valley is by no means 
an easy one. It is a wild, rugged, picturesque 
country. The bed of a boiling stream is the public 
highway for a part of the distance. The water is 
not more than a foot deep, but through it you must 
drive in one place for twenty rods or more. The 
rushing stream is little more than axle wide, and the 
trees on either side hem it in. If you are on foot 
you must not attempt to go by the road unless you 
are prepared to Avade. You must follow a faint 
trail over the hills, which will lead you to your des- 
tination by another route. 

When you enter the mountain-inclosed valley you 
cannot fail to be impressed by the beauty of the 
scene. You make your way from a heavily tim- 
bered hill down to the bank of turbid Muddy Creek, 
and ford tlie stream. The mountains about you are 




PANNING FOR GOLD. 

several of them more than a mile high. Their out- 
lines are clear cut in the thin bracing air. The 
elevation of nearly 2,000 feet, with plenty of ozone 
to breathe, makes the sun's rays less oppressive than 
on Broadway on a warm day. The evidences of the 
search for gold are before you at first glance. The 
yellow stream, more discolored than the Missouri or 
the Sacramento, has not run clear for half a cen- 
tury, and all on account of the work it has had to 
do in washing the precious metal from the earth in 
which it was concealed. Moody Creek, it is said, 
was its name before the discovery of gold in its bed 
and banks, but that gave place to the present more 
appropriate appellation many years ago. 

Gold was discovered in the vicinity of Muddy 
Creek Valley in 1827, according to the most reli- 
able local records. Few people, white or blfXck, 



lived in what was then an almost untouched wilder- 
ness. Settlers came in small numbers and began 
to wash the gravel over which the mountain streams 
ran. They got good returns with even the crude 
manual methods which they employed. For years 
they used only the shovel and pan. Four or five 
pounds of earth were put into a broad shallow pan 
and shaken and washed, gradually letting the earth 
escape over the edges until less than a teaspoonful 
remained. The gold if any there was, would be 
found in these dregs, kept there by its greater specific 
gravity. A single speck of the yellow metal is called a 
"color," several specks several ''colors." Tiny 
nuggets weighing from one to several grains were 
often found, but the average yield was perhaps fif- 
teen cents per pan. But this meant good returns, 
for at that rate an industrious miner could earn $10 
a day, which in those days was very high wages. 

But it was crude work. Much of the gold was 
lost by the careless process of washing. This gave 
rise to the old belief which still obtains among the 
old miners of the region, that gold grows. They 
say that if gravel once washed is left to lie undis- 
turbed for five or six years and then again treated 
by hydraulic process it will yield as much more gold 
as it did originally. This is quite true of the old 
workings in North Carolina, but the reason is not 
to be found in the processes of nature, but in the 
imperfection of man's work. The prevalence of 
' this idea that gold grows has led the natives to re- 
wash some of the gravel in North Carolina river beds 
no less than five or six times, and each time at a 
profit. No doubt all this gold-bearing earth could 
be profitably reworked still again by modern eco- 
nomic processes, for the hydraulic treatment of 
earth bearing free gold can now be applied with 
profit if the yield is only a few cents per ton. 

When the California gold excitement of 1849 
reached the East there was a stampede from the 
Georgia and North Carolina gold fields to the new 
El Dorado, Nearly all the white men started for 
the land of gold where fortunes were to be made in 
a day. They left a sure thing for big chances, and 
some of them were glad they did it and some were 
not. In all these years little had been done in the 
North Carolina fields except primitive placer mining. 
Some progress had been made in hydraulic methods, 
but little or nothing has been done in the way of 
vein work, the digging and crushing of ore in stamp 
mills which yield $100 where placer mining 



4 



yields ^i, and the indolent slave owners who re- 
mained were content to go on m the same way. 
They found it profitable even with unskilled negro 
labor, and they were content. 

James Upton's slaves worked the Muddy Creek 
gravel for about ten years before the war, and Upton 
grew rich out of the profits of their labor. A great 
deal of the gold which they washed out did not reach 
their owner's coffers, but they did turn over enough 
dust to enable him, as he expressed it, "to buy a 
new nigger every week " for nearly two years. Then 
the war came and Jim Upton's negroes beqame free. 
They refused to dig gold for him any more, even for 
was:es, and the old man's wealth turned to poverty. 
The change broke him down, and though he lived 
until about two years ago he never amounted to 
much after losing his battalion of negro gold diggers. 
In cruel sarcasm, his wife was universally known in 
the neighborhood for years before his death as 
'"Widow Upton," because "Jim was as good as 
dead." But old Jim while he lived was the best 
authority on the mineral history of the region in 
which he lived. He declared that fully $1,500,000 
in gold had been scraped from the bed and banks of 
Muddy Creek in the space not more than two miles 
long and nowhere more than fifty feet wide. 

The biggest find ever made in the valley in gold 
was a monster nugget which local records say 
weighed twenty-eight pounds, and was worth about 
$8,000. This was found by a white boy in 1855. 
A year or two later a negro woman found a lump 
weighing three pounds, worth nearly $1,000. She 
took it home, chopped it in two with an axe, and 
divided it with her husband. They were slaves, 
and they hid the treasure until the war broke out, 
when they sold it. Of late years the big nuggets 
reported have varied from 30 to 60 pennyweights. 

Old Bill Owens is the negro oracle of the valley. 
Uncle Bill is 90 years old and he is probably the 
richest negro in western North Carolina. He was 
never a slave, and he has dug gold for a living most 
of his active life. He declared that the negroes 
used to take the yellow metal from the earth, " not 
by pennyweights but by pounds," and he says 
nobody has any adequate idea of the true yield 
of the valley in slavery days. Uncle Bill used to 
employ other negroes to mine for him. He made a 
good thing of the discovery of gold in Jackson Creek 
soon after the war. He set up a Long Tom, a sort 
of sluice box eight feet long, in which water and 
earth are shaken, and put a boy at work with it. He 



found about twenty pennyweights of gold, worth 
about $20 in the bottom of the Long Tom that 
night. Uncle Bill had several hands at work on 
another little stream, and he transferred ihem all to 
Jackson Creek, and took out a small fortune before 
he exhausted the pay dirt. When the valley was 
divided into small claims, he says that Henry Clay 
owned one on Muddy Creek. Nobody knows 
whether the great commoner ever got any gold out 
of it. 

After the war the land now considered of great 
mineral value gradually concentrated into rather few 
hands. Native mountaineers — half farmer, half 
miner — owned it in tracts of from 100 to 500 acres. 
They called themselves farmers because they usually 
cultivated a few acres about their homes, but most 
of their time was spent with the pick, shovel, and 
pan, instead of with the plough and hoe. Their 
firm conviction that gold grows has cost them for- 
tunes, or rather it kept from their eyes riches which 
scientific searchers easily discovered. They re- 
worked the old piles of earth until they ceased to 
yield gold in paying quantities under their crude 
appliances. Then they began to believe that the 
mineral value of the land had been exhausted. 
This was at about the time that Northern pros- 
pectors began to visit the long-forgotten fields in 
western North Carolina. It was directly owing to 
a visit of an old '49er that the Muddy Creek valley 
came into its present ownership. He had pros- 
pected in the vicinity a little when the news from 
California came East. He was quick to catch the 
fever, and he spent many years in Pacific coast 
mines. Three or four years ago he went back to 
North Carolina and looked the ground over with 
more experienced eyes. He discovered something 
which the natives had never looked for — some of 
the sources of the supply of loose gold in the river 
beds. He found some gold-bearing veins in the 
upper portion of Muddy Creek Valley. He brought 
the news North, and Northern capitalists became 
interested in the story. They investigated and 
made tests, and then began buying land. Private 
corporations were formed, and finally the whole 
valley and some land outside of it was secured by 
two or three concerns. In one of them two or 
three Uuited States Senators are the principal 
stockholders, and an offer of twice par for some 
slock a little while ago didn't bring out a share. In 
fact, there are no opportunities in sight for investors 
in any part of the known gold territory. There are 



ulines near Charlotte, loo miles east of Muddy 
Creek, which have yielded $2,000,000 or more 
each, but they are owned by close corporations. In 
fact, the only way for an ambitious newcomer to 
profit by North Carolina's mineral advantages is to 
spy out some new treasure and secure a title to the 
land in which it lies. 

The source of the gold in Muddy Creek has never 
been tapped, except by recent prospectors. The 
actual work of taking out ore has been delayed for 
three or four years by lawsuits. The neighbors of 
the former owners further down the valley heard 
of the discoveries of ore in veins, and, thinking 
to profit indirectly by the riches beyond their 
reach, they brought suit for damages to their 
farms by the deposit of earth brought down by the 
mud-laden stream. While these cases, involving in 




A I'ANFUI. FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. 

the aggregate very heavy claims, were pending, 
nothing was done in the way of mining. These 
claims have recently been settled, and the active 
work of mining will soon be undertaken. But the 
work of prospecting has been thoroughly pushed 
during the interval, and it has yielded results, 
some of which are outlined above. So far no less 
than thirty-one veins of gold ore have been uncov- 
ered and tested. They are from two inches to three 
feet wide, the average being more than 10 inches. 
They are each about a mile long, and they assay 
from $40 to $180 per ton. It is a free-milling quartz 
in every case, and generally soft enough to be taken 
out with the pick without blasting. It is an inter- 
esting and unusual fact that not only does the vein 
matter itself contain gold, but the metal is found in 
paying quantities also in the walling, as the sur- 



rounding rock is called* The maimer of iocatitig ii 
vein of gold-bearing quartz is interesting. It is 
usually traced by means of "float ore," so called. 
Loose stones upon the surface of the ground which 
contain gold are usually found either over a vein or 
where they would naturally roll b) gravity or the 
action of water from the vein itself. It is a difficult 
matter very often, however, to locate a vein even 
when the float ore indications are abundant. 

There is another peculiarity of this strange region 
of geological marvels. John Sprouse, Superintend- 
ent of the Marion Bullion Company, which owns a 
large part of the Muddy Creek Valley, expresses the 
conviction that the whole valley was once the bed 
of a large river. Mr. Sprouse was returning from 
a visit to one of the veins on a mountain side and 
was walking through a piece of pine woods with a 
Sun reporter and two or three miners when he 
broached this theory, 

"That's the only way that I can account for the 
fact," hesaid, "that we find placer gold in a layer 
of gravel almost anywhere we dig on these hillsides, 
I'll warrant you'll find it in paying quantities, too, 
anywhere you try for it." 

"Suppose we test it right here," suggested the 
newspaper man. 

"Agreed," replied the superintendent, and he 
directed a miner with a pick and shovel to dig a hole 
where the party had stopped. The location was 
nearly 100 feet higher than Muddy Creek, and 
about a quarter of a mile distant from it. 

The miner scraped away the pine needles and 
vegetable mould, and dug through three or four 
inches of soft soil until he struck a layer of coarse 
earth or gravel, such as Sprouse had said would be 
found. He filled a pan with this, and it was carried 
to the house to be washed out. On the way, just 
for a joke, another panful was taken from the mid- 
dle of the mountain road. 

Reaching the superintendent's house, one of the 
miners panned both samples under a stream of water 
running from a trough. The dirt from the middle 
of the road showed two or three "colors." That 
dug under the pines in the woods was really rich. 
It contained a tiny nugget weighing two or three 
grains and several smaller bits of colors. A man 
might net bigger returns than at any kind of skilled 
labor by simply shoveling dirt from under those pine 
trees on the mountain side and washing it in an old 
pan at a water spout. 

The richest deposit of gold in the Muddy Creek 



6 



Valley is undoubtedly in a strange swamp in its very 
centre. The swamp is a sort of pit, into which the 
mineral wealth of the basin would naturally settle. 
No man has ever yet been able to explore it. It is 
not large in area, but it is a treacherous, dangerous 
spot. The writer, in skirting its borders with no 
sign of danger, suddenly found his foothold disap- 
pearing. In an instant he was half to his knees in a 
peculiar, vari-colored quicksand, that required lively 
gymnastics to escape from. A man named Smalley 
and three others who owned the swamp several years 
ago took $40,000 in gold from the edge in less than 
thirty days. The mire and quicksands prevented 
their doing more though the deposit grew richer 
every foot they advanced. One of the first things 
done by the present owners was to dig a canal, at 
considerable expense, to drain this swamp. It was 
almost completed when the banks suddenly caved in 
upon the ten men at work, and it was with greatest 
difficulty that they succeeded in escaping with their 
lives. Since then such a strong superstition regard- 
ing the spot has seized the native miners that not 
one of them can be induced to work there for any 
wages. The swamp has been drained partially by 
the canal, and within a year this work will be com- 
pleted so that the search for gold can be prosecuted 
without danger. 

Graveyard Hollow is another spot believed to be 
underlaid with a rich deposit of gold. It is an old 
abandoned graveyard in the woods with high mounds 
of earth and tumble-down headstones marking the 
graves. Dates ranging from 1837 to 1870 were 
found on these stones by the Sun correspondent, 
and apparently about 200 bodies have been buried 
there. Whether these vidll be disturbed in the ruth- 
less search for mineral wealth cannot be said yet. 

It is the gems found in the valley which most 
excite the wonder of geologists and other scientific 
men. They never kill a turkey or a chicken in the 
valley now without Jooking in its crop for a possible 
ruby or diamond. Several precious stones have been 
found in this way. The bright, hard crystals to be 
found in the sand have a great attraction for the 
fastidious fowls, which would line their stomachs 
with a full assortment of jewels, instead of common 
gravel, if they could find them. It is only three or 
four years since it was known that there were gems 
of any value in the valley. Pretty baubles had often 
been found in the sand or earth, but it was not sup- 
posed they were vv^orth anything. The first known 
diamond to be discovered was a monster, and its fate 



was such as would make a lapidary tear his hair in 
exasperation. 

A beautiful, clear, white stone was picked up by a 
native miner, who showed it to his friends after 
finishing his day's work. It was a brilliant crystal, 
even in its rough state, and as large as a walnut. 
The men all admired it, and it was noticed that it 
still sparkled after dark. It was suggested that only 
a diamond would show such brilliancy at night, and 
the stone was examined with renewed interest. 
Various tests to prove its real nature were suggested. 
Finally, one individual who assumed to know all 
about it said that a diamond was the hardest sub- 
stance in the world, and that if the crystal was really 
a gem, it would resist unharmed all attempts to break 




TAKING A SAMPLE OF EARTH HAP-HAZARD IN THE WOODS. 

it. He advised testing the stone with a blow of a 
hammer on an anvil. If it was worth anything it 
would not break. The finder consented and the 
test was applied. When the sledge struck the beau- 
tiful stone of course it flew into more than a dozen 
pieces. It was decided that the crystal was not a 
diamond, but some of the fragments were so brilliant 
that they were preserved. A visiting geologist 
whose name the writer could not learn, got hold of 
one or two of the chips sometime afterward and 
promptly pronounced them parts of a diamond of 
great purity. The original stone would have been 
a gem of almost priceless value. 

There are eighteen known existing diamonds 
from Muddy Creek Valley, all of them found within 



a year. The largest, already mentioned, weighing 
five and one-half carats, is owned by Col. Henry 
C. Deming, of Harrisburg, general manager of the 
Marion Bullion Company. He values it at $1,200, 
and he has a collection of miscellaneous gems from 
the valley worth several thousand dollars. Garnets 
are the most common stone found of any value. 
There is a wealth of these. Almost a peck of them 
tumbled out of one of the hydraulics one day. They 
are found loose and in stone. In one spot there is 
a mass of garnet rock in which they are studded as 
thick as plums in pudding. These, however, are of 
no value except as curiosities. 

Another interesting spot is the vicinity of Rattle- 
snake Den, a mass of great rocks where a nest of 
eighteen or twenty rattlesnakes was broken up 
three or four yeai's ago. Within a radius of 100 




PANNING THE SAMPLE FROM THE WOODS. 



feet, Prof. Alfred Free found seven extremely rare 
minerals, besides a great variety of more common 
matter. Almost side by side is rock hard as flint 
and talc soft as soap-stone, which can be cut with 
a knife. There is also a fine building stone of the 
quality of granite, but streaked with oddest color 
like the stripes of a leopard. It is called leopardite. 
The deposit of mica is found near a steep moun- 
tain top. It is reached only after a hard scramble 
to a height of 2,200 feet. Only a small portion of 
the deposit has been uncovered yet. The mica is 
found in great layers embedded in rock and in the 
midst of a beautiful deposit of clay which is all the 
colors of the rainbow streaked in fantastic layers 
and looking something like the pattern of a Turkish 
carpet. A great patch of kaoline, soft and moist, 
in the midst of such a setting, appeared whiter than 



the driven stiow in whiter. Most of the mica taken 
out thus far is not purely transparent, but speckled. 
It is found in fairly large sheets, however, many of 
them measuring six by eight inches. North Caro- 
lina, by the way, supplies nearly three fourths of 
the mica used in the world. 

While in variety of geological riches no equal is 
known in this country of the Muddy Creek Valley 
there are several spots in North Carolina which 
have surpassed it in the production of gold. The 
territory around Charlotte has the best record. Gold 
was discovered there nearly thirty years before it 
was found at Muddy Creek, Tradition has it thai 
a big lump of virgin gold found in 1799 was used as 
a weight to keep the door of his house from slamming^ 
by John Reed, of Cabarrus County, for three years. 
In 1802 he sold it to a jeweler at Fayetteville for 
$3,50. The present product of gold in the State is 
not easily estimated. The returns furnished State 
officials show a product of about $500,000 a year; 
but most of the gold mined in the State never make 
part of any official record. There are some sixty 
gold mines in Macklenburg county, five of which 
are in the city of Charlotte itself, and some $2,000,- 
000 of Northern capital is invested in the industry. 

The Rudisill mine, the largest in the State, is 
located near the terminus of Church Street, and the 
St. Catherine is within a stone's throw of the Rich- 
mond and Danville depot. From Independence 
Square, the steam from the exhaust pipes from the 
Point mine, near the end of Trade Street, can be 
seen easily, while from the site of the new town of 
Dilworthcan be observed the works of the Summit 
Hill mine. 

The main shaft of the Rudisill mine is 390 feet 
deep, and there are about 3,000 feet of tunnels. 
St. Catherine mine is about 400 feet deep. Within 
a short distance of the city are some very valuable 
mines, among which are the Capp's Hill, the Dunn, 
the Hopewell, McGinn, Arlington, Clark, Guaran- 
tee, Baltimore and North Carolina, Ferris, Black, 
Stephen, Wilson, Sampson, Hoover, Hemby mine, 
Henderson, Chinquepin, Mountain, and a number 
of others. 

There are at least twenty mines in the county 
which are being constantly worked, and forty which 
are worked at irregular intervals. There are some 
extensively developed and prosperous mines in the 
adjoining counties of Rowan, Cabarrus, and Union, 
The ores vary considerably in quality, the lowest 
grade being about $40 per ton and the highest $180 



per ton. The Rudisill mine lias produced since it 
was first worked $2,500,000 in gold, and the Copp's 
Hill about $2,000,000. 

Northern capital is becoming more and more inter- 
ested in the mineral wealth of the South. It is a 
resource which has by no means been fully devel- 
oped yet. The more common as well as the precious 
metals are found in paying quantities in the region 
which has been described. Iron in all its most 
valuable varieties is there in great abundance. 



The great revival in the resources of the South now 
just opening will not fully develop until her marvel- 
ous mineral wealth has been uncovered. The South 
to-day in many respects has for the pioneer all the 
charm of a newly discovered country. Slavery 
blinded her people to the treasures at their doors. 
The war added its paralysis. Now they are once 
more in the full vigor of their manhood, and won- 
derful things will be told in the next few years 
of the South. 




A MINER AT REST. 



9 



PART II. 



The discoveries of gold and precious stones in 
western North Carolina amongst the mountains, in 
the valleys and the small streams that traverse them 
would seem almost like tales from fairyland were 
they not attested by thousands of inhabitants, news- 
papers that have sent their reporters there, compe- 
tent mining engineers, geologists and scientists. 
Also and perhaps even more convincing, are the 
cold, unvarnished facts that the ignorant and half 
wild mountaineers do their trading with the country 
stores in virgin gold in nuggets and dust ; that 
large jewelry firms, such as Tiffany & Company, 
have purchased diamonds found in this region, and 
that large nuggets and valuable deposits are almost 
weekly being discovered. 

Should there still be any doubt in anyone's mind 
as to the richness of these new gold fields reference 
to the last official report of the State Geologist of 
North Carolina will forever set them at rest. But 
even better than this is the fact that a trip to these 
fields will soon convince any unbeliever of the facts 
we claim. 

■ The North Carolina Gold Mining and Bullion 
Company was organized and incorporated with a 
capitalization of two million dollars ($2, ooo,ooo) for 
the purchase and working of the vast mineral wealth 
of this region, and it promises to be one of the most 
successful companies that the history of gold mining 
has ever known. 

The Company owns and controls land in 
McDowell County on Muddy Creek, and in Muddy 
Creek Valley, from which with even the crudest and 
most primitive methods of mining, over eleven 
million dollars in gold has already been taken, and 
where there are now in successful operation 22 large 
mines, with stamps, drills, crushers, amalgamators, 
etc., running day and night and controlled, several 
of them, by English capital. 

The Company also owns a magnificent property 
in Davidson, Montgomery and Randolph Counties, 
viz. : A State Grant (from Governor and State of 
North Carolina) of twenty miles of the bed and 



shores of the Uhwarrie River, from its source to 
its adit into the Yadkin River. On small streams 
emptying into theUhwarrie are located 17 gold mines 
in active operation, some running day and night and 
paying handsome dividends. This most valuable 
property was purchased by the Company under a 
guarantee that every cubic yard of sand and gravel 
in its bed, etc. , would, with ordinary placer min- 
ing (pan and shovel) produce from $1.00 to $5.00 in 
virgin gold. Besides this every rain and every 
flood brings down more gold from the mountains 
to enrich its gravel, and the mines on the small 
tributary streams are constantly washing down 
" tailings" containing wasted gold worth thousands 
of dollars. (See accompanying map.) Of this 
property CHARLES G. MANN, of Highpoint, North 
Carolina, probably the most capable, conservative 
and careful mining engineer in the State, writes in 
his report on the Hodge Tract: "Another New 
Yoi'k party has acquired valuable mining ground 
close by in McDowell County and 18 miles of sluic- 
ing ground on the banks of the Uhwarrie River, in 
Randolph County, where I once sluiced out one 
ounce of fine gold (950) in eight hour's time. With 
great pleasure I see North Carolina coming to the 
front with capital and improved means to do justice 
to her immense mineral treasures." 

To resume briefly regarding McDowell County, 
i in which part of our land is located-r " " " 

Some Pertineut Facts. 

There are 22 Gold Mines in this County, the ore 
iron) which assays from $50 to $180 pure gold. 

Two of these mines alone have yielded FIVE AND 
ONE-HALF MILLIONS DOLLARS IN GOLD (Russell 
and Copp's Hill). 

There are eighteen known existing Diamonds found 
recently in Muddy Creek Valley alone. The largest 
(51^ carats) is owned by Col. Henry C. Deming, of 
Harrisburg, Pa. He has a collection of miscella- 
neous gems picked up in same county, worth several 
thousand dollars. 



10 



Garnets are found in large quaniiiies. A rare 
form of Granite, for building stone, strioed lil<e a 
leopard's skin and called " leopardite," is also 
found there. 

Prof. Alfred Free found, near Rattlesnake Den, 
within a radius of one hundred feet, seven of the 
rarest gems. 

A man named Smalley {who owned the land) and 
three others took FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS in 
gold from the edge of a swamp in 30 days' time. 

Precious Stones have repeatedly been found in 
the crops of chickens and turkeys. 

The following gems and metals have already been 
found in this County: 

Diamonds, Rubies, Garnets, Sapphires, Beryl, 
Moonstone, Jasper, Zincorn, Silver, Copper, Gold, 
Platinum, Lead, Iron, Mica, and Kaolin, besides 56 
other varieties of rare minerals and gems. 

Most of these valuable deposits are upon the sur- 
face or near it, so that expensive tools, machinery, 
etc., will not be needed except in special instances. 

Salisbury, N. C, Aug. lo, '91, 
North Carolina Gold Mining and Bullion Co., 
New York City. 

Dear Sirs: 

In reply to yours of the 7th, I would state : 
The Uwharrie district comprises a belt from one to 
three miles in width, lying on each side of the 
Uhwarrie River and on the slopes of the Uhwarrie 
Mountains, in Montgomery and Randolph Counties, 
and extending twenty miles northward from the 
mouth of that river. 

Mining was carried on here on a vigorous scale as 
early as 1825, and has been carried on without inter- 
ruption, in a crude way, ever since. 

There is no way of estimating the amount of gold 
taken from the district, as most of it has been done 
by a mixed lot of tributers and no account ever been 
kept, but that an immense amount has been taken 
out is evident from the work that has been done. 

The bed of every creek and branch in the lower 
half of this district, and most of the hollows, have 
been woi'ked out thoroughly, and after standing for 
a few years they were, in some cases, worked again, 
and this continued for a half dozen times, each time 



the parties finding that it paid them well. This is 
accounted for from the fact that it being a mountain- 
ous county the rains are constantly washing the sur- 
face dirt into the streams, and the gold being dis- 
seminated t-liroligh it by the breaking down of veins, 
is deposited in the beds of the streams, making them 
in some cases extremely rich. 

Of late years a great many deposits on the sides 
of hills have been discovered and worked and the 
returns of some of them are most fabulous. For 
instance : The Sanders' find, where, with nothing 
but the shovel, pan and rocker, a half bushel of 
gold was taken out in a month's time by the native 
miners. Another instance, more recent, was of two 
parties taking out a peck of gold in a week's time, 
working only a few hours at night. 

The gold is so widely disseminated throughout 
this district that almost any of the land owners will 
tell you that if you can find a pan full of dirt any- 
where on their land that does not show gold they will 
give you fifty acres. Senator Hearst, one of the 
most successful mining men of the country, visited 
the district only a few months before his death and 
was so well pleased that he bought a large territory, 
intending to go into hydraulicing on an extensive 
scale. 

The gold is mostly coa.vse, a great many pieces 
having been found weighing over a pound. 

In the upper part of this district the gold is found 
in place, generally in sileiceous schists, and a num- 
ber of English companies, quick to take hold of 
anything good, are now operating stamp mills, 130 
stamps having been erected in the past few years 
within one mile of the river. 

Respectfully, 

C. G. ViELE. 

I send by this mail a copy of ' ' Ores of North 
Carolina," the latest geological work we have. I 
have marked paragraphs on pages 248, 325 and 327, 
and ask you to look at the large map in it. You 
will see by the note on map that means gold 
mines, and if you will look at the Uhwarrie River 
(marked around with lead pencil) you will see what 
a number they have placed near it. 

C. G. ViELE. 



11 

PA R T III. 



•^ FREE CLAIMS. 4- 

HOW TO SECURE STOCK IN THIS COMPANY. 



CAPITAL ($2,000,000) TWO MILLION DOLLARS. 
SHARES $10 EACH, NON-ASSESSABLE. 



The Income of the Company will be from 

FIRST. — The working of valuable ore and gem deposits, pockets and placers on its property. 
SJECO^fD. — Ten per cent, of the gross valfie of all valuable discoveries made by owners of Free 
Claims. 

THIRD, — The erection and operation of quartz crushers, electric drills and separators, furnaces, 

forges, houses, stores, etc., etc., on its property. 
FOURTH, — The percentage paid by claim-holders for assaying, smelting, separating, refining and 

marketing gold and jewels mined on claims. 
FIFTH. — The sale or working of tenth claims reserved by the Company, and which will become more 

and more valuable with each discovery of ore, nuggets or jewels, by adjoining claim-holders. 
SIXTH. — Profits from co-operative store for sale of food, clothing, mining tools and utensils, etc., etc. 
SEVENTH.— Profits of Bank and Hotel. 

EIGHTH. — Profits from sale of valuable timber on reserved sections. 
NIXTH. — The purchase and sale of valuable mineral lands. 



PECULIAR ADVANTAGES. 

The stock of the Company will not only earn gratifying dividends, but will increase rapidly in 
market value with the working of first claims, new discoveries and the development of the Company's 
properties. 

Besides this, the holder of each Mining Right or Claim which Stockholder receives, stands the 
chance of discovering on his Right or Claim a fortune of from Five Hundred Dollars to One Hundred Thousand 
Dollars. 

The stock is selling very fast. If you want to share in this bonanza you must be quick about it. 



Shares of Stock cost $10 each. With each pur- 
chase of stock the company gives one Mining Claim, 
25x100 feet, on either its McDowell County or Ran- 
dolph County property. 

Each mining claim is leased to the shareholder 
by the company for 50 years, with privilege of re- 



newing the lease for 50 years more if desired. This 
is done because the company's Charter will not per- 
mit of outright sale. Each claim is a perfect build- 
ing lot in size and conformation and is of full value, 
aside from the chance of finding gold and precious 
stones on it. The claim is absolutely FREE, there 



12 



being no charge for it or its lease in any way or 
shape. 

The holder of a mining claim may work it himself 
or the company will work it for him. 

Every tenth claim in rotate order is reserved by 
the company for the benefit of shareholders, who do 
not own or work claims. 

The company does not bind itself to give away 
claims beyond 90 days from date. 

The company will sell only enough stock to make 
the necessary purchase of property, improvements 
and developments on its properties, erect mills, 
stamps, hydraulicing machines, &c. 

Artisan SHAREHOLDERS will be employed at full 
wages in the company's work in preference to out- 
siders. 

Each shareholder whose claim yields over $500 in 
gold or gems must bind himself or herself to pay to 
the company 10 per cent, of its value for the benefit 
of non-working shareholders. 

Thus, if John Jones or Richaid Roe, for example, 
find a gold nugget on their claim worth $2,000, they 
must, as soon as sold, pay to the company 10 per 
cent, of its gross value or $200, which money will 
l)e credited to the earnings of the company. 

The company will erect additional machinery, hire 
further labor and push the sluicing and hydraulicing 
work on the Uhwarrie River property, so as to increase 
its earnings and make the stock of the company ex- 
ceedingly valuable. 

The company owns nearly 20 miles of this valu- 
able property, and it is estimated by experts that 
five miles of it properly worked ought to yield a 
dividend of 500 per cent. 

The richness of the Uhwarrie River is inexhaustible, 
because every rain storm and the decay of rock, &c., 
on the mountain sides bring down fresh deposits of 
gold, besides the rich tailings constantly washing 
down from the ravines above. 

SAL-E OF 1,000 SHARES. 

One of the largest purchasers of stock is Mr. C. G. 
Viele, of Salisbury, N. C, who knows and lives in the 
district, and feels no hesitation about the results. 
He has Just taken $10,000 worth of stock. 

Should any person doubt these facts he can write 
to any officials of Randolph or McDowell Counties, 
to the County Surveyor, the County Clerk, or as 
to the validity and standing of our company to the 
secretary of State of West Virginia. 



Stockholders leasing a claim from the company 
and not being able or desirous of working same, may 
sell these claims to adjoining claim-holders whose 
property pans out rich, and who would give 100 or 
1,000 times their value for them. 

At the present rate of development and increase 
in value, and the purchase of additional valuable 
mineral land and mines in this section, stock that is 
now selling for $10, will be worth $500 or $1,000. 

Remember that the number of shares to be sold 
and the time for selling them is limited, and if you 
want to come in at the bottom price you must not 
delay. 

IMPORTANT. 

Parties who are not in funds the day this Prospec- 
tus is received and want to secure a share of stock 
and a free claim AT ONCE, may send $2 for each 
share of stock wanted, and the balance of $8 on 
each share any time within 30 days. 

$2,00 OPTIONS- 

Thus, if you want one share and can't send $10 
to-day, send $2, and $8 more inside of 30 days, 
when you will receive a share of stock and a free 
claim. 

If you want five shares send $10 (five times $2), 
and $40 more inside of 30 days. If you want 20 
shares send $40 (20 times $2) and the balance of 
$160 in 30 days. It is always best when possible 
to send the full amount for stock at the time of or- 
dering. 

I share, . . $ to] 
^5 shares, . . . ^50 j^^yj^i^ ^^^^ Mining Claims 

• • • j Qdich share of stock. 

20 " ... 200 I 
100 " . . 1,000 j 

Stock will be sold at its present figure for only a 
limited time. 

Send money by registered letter, P. O. order, 
Express order, bank draft, check, or in Express 
envelope. 

English and Continental Dividends 

and premiums will be paid in gold at our offices in 
London, shortly to be opened. Foreign shareholders 
must appoint either the Actuary of the company or 
some American as their claim agent, as such claims 
cannot be otherwise legally held by non-resident 
foreigners. 



13 



GRANTS FROM THE STATE. ; McDowell County, is a beautiful town, by reason of 
The future prospects of the Company are | its location and natural advantages, almost a peer of 
of the very brightest, owning as it does some cf 
the most valuable mineral property in North Caro, 



Una (Rutherford and McDowell Counties, the former 
famous for its heavy gold deposits and seed pearls 
along the entire bed of the river, the latter for its 
diamonds, garnets, tourmaline and gold, 



the celebrated Asheville, the greatest health resort 
in the South, and near Avhich is Vanderbilt's mag- 
nificent winter estate. 2,600 feet above the sea, 
nestling almost in the clouds, with mountain streams 
of crystal clearness, tumbling waterfalls, beautiful 
rides and drives, air fragrant with the breath of the 



Our property is ours in perpetuity, I balsamic fir and pine, it is a most beautiful spot. It 
being under grants from the State of North Car- 1 is indeed an ideal home, a perfect health resort and 
olina, is daily growing richer by the constant decay j with an abundance of rich farming land. Besides 
of gold bearing rocks and the washing down of gold | this there is magnificent hunting and fishing, and it 
from tlie hillsides. I is only 30 hours' ride from New York. 



{RTRW^R HOTEL 



W,H. n OYD ./t/tC^^rc^flTrMffOOfl 




We Siiall profit by our riches in double , 
measure. Our miners will steadily and regularly 
wash out the golden grains by cradle and hydraulic 
machinery, and some of our active stockholders will 
l^e working their claims and sections, bringing their 
families South and adding to the population and 
prosperity of this district. 

THE TOWN OF MARION. 
Near both our properties are beautiful 
and progressive towns, in which lots and houses can i 
be purchased at most reasonable figures. Marion, in j 



This is very aptly named "THE LAND OF 
THE SKY," and every turn reminds you of Mrs. 
Craddock's stories of the Bald Knob and the Great 
Smoky Mountains. 

Salisbury, N.C., situated in Randolph County, and 
lying nearest to our Uhwairie River property, is a 
liandsome town, filled with liospitablc and active 
citizens, bright and active business men, public of- 
ficers of exceptional ability and integrity, and some 
of the handsomest ladies in the South. 

Both of these growing towns are situated 01 the 



14 



Richmond and Danville railroad, running through 
trains daily from New York, and with elegant Pull- 
man cars. Surrounded by the richest and most 
fertile farming land, beautiful and valuable timber, 
and within easy distance of some of the richest gold 
fields of the world, it has a prosperous and active 
future before it. 

At Charlotte may be seen the old Government 
mint and assay house of stone, built expressly for 
the gold from Southern mines, and for many years 
run exclusively for that purpose. 

The North Carolina Gold Mining and Bullion Com- 
pany owns nearly every foot of the celebrated 
Uwharrie River from its source to where it empties 
into the Yadkin River. Reference to the maps in 
this book Avill give an idea of the immense value of 
this property. Indeed, there is enough gold hidden 
in its sands and gravel to build the city of Phila- 
delphia of gold bricks. And it is constantly in- 
creasing, day by day and hour by hour. Best of all 
it is mostly upon the surface, making it easily and 
readily accessible, without expensive machinery or 
deep mining. 

It is in this grand property that each shareholder 
participates, and from which with us he will reap a 
golden harvest of wealth. 

Besides this are the valuable properties in Mc- 
Dowell County, in which county more precious met- 
als and rare gems have been found than in any other 
county in the United States. 

THE CHANCE OF A LIFE-TIME. 

Indeed we believe we are offering you the chance 
of a life-time, an opportunity to make a fortune not 
unlike in many particulars the wealth of Mackay, 
O'Brien and Flood in California, who now count it 
by the millions, where once they had nothing. 
Indeed some of our richest mining millionaires were 
once common day laborers. 

The same rapid rise to fortune from small be- 
ginnings and fortunate investments may be cited of 
our oil princes, the Flaglers (Standard Oil Com- 
pany), and our sugar kings, Havemeyer and Spreck- 
els. 

STOCK AND A BUILDING LOT. 

In investing in the stock of our company at bed- 
rock prices you stand to lose nothing and gain much- 
Aside from the mining claim that we lease to you in 
perpetuity, even if no very valuable deposits are 
found upon it, you have a full and valuable piece of 



property, a building lot 25x100 feet, worth fully five 
times the price of a share of stock. 

CHANCES FOR MECHANICS AND 
MERCHANTS. 

In the near future there will be chances not only 
for miners and laborers, but for skilled artisans, 
young business men, store-keepers, teamsters, wood 
choppers, boarding mistresses, etc. This country is 
rapidly building up, as is all the South. Northern 
capital is rapidly finding its way here to legitimate 
enterprises, and a new era of activity and prosperity 
is dawning on this magnificent country.^ 

AS AN INVESTMENT. 

To such as do not care to go South the stock is a 
valuable investment from a dividend paying point 
of view, and claim-holders will find the Company 
liberal in its views, and ready to work claims hon- 
estly and fairly when desired. 

MONEY TO LOAN. 

Furthermore the Company will deed land andl^nd 
money to legitimate enterprises and deserving per- 
sons to aid in the erection of stores, houses, etc., 
and will aid stockholders in every way that may lie 
within their power. 

SAVE YOUR MONEY. 

Save your money and invest it in new lands and 
new but reliable enterprises A few dollars saved 
each week or month and properly invested now may 
make you a rich and prosperous man iu the future. 
It is hard to save money, btit it pays. We are wont 
nowadays to consider luxuries as necessaries, and to 
spend money foolishly that might be steadily making 
you a fortune. 

*Tlie New Soutli. 

Development of Trade and Railway Enterprises in 
THE Last Three Months. 

Chattanooga, Sept. 28.— On Oct. 1 the Tradesman 
will publish a review of the industrial development of 
the South for the third quarter of 1891. The number 
of new industries established during the last three 
months is 1,000, against 1,070 for the corresponding 
quarter of 1890, and 825 in the same quarter of 1889. 

During the quarter ending on Oct. 1 there were es- 
tablished in the Southern States 3 boot and shoe 
factories, 5 breweries, 36 brick and tile works, 14 can- 
ning factories, 8 compresses and 49 cotton and woollen 
mills ; 60 development and improvement companies 
have been organized in the South in the last three 
months, 33 electric light companies have been estab- 
lished in the last quarter, 24 flour and grist mills, 59 
founderies and machine shops, 9 furnaces. 54 mining 
and quarrying companies and 23 oil mills ; 126 railroad 
companies have been organized, and 39 steel and elec- 
tric railways.-J\^. Y. Sun, Sept. 28, 1891. 



15 



This is indeed the chance of a life-time. Take 
advantage of it to-day, to-morrow may be too late. 

Certainly our shares will not long remain at $10, 
and we shall not give away free mining claims much 
longer. 

Each share is numbered. There will be 
no reservation of claims, except every tenth claim 
for the benefit of the Company, and in the profits of 
which every stockholder shares, each claim going in 
its regular rotate order. 

Every Deed and Claim can be registered 
in the office of the County Clerk, and an attest re- 
turned to the holder. 

' A magnificent investment for a father 
to make for his sons. Even if the claims are not 
worked, the value of the stock, the properties, mills, 
stamps, sluices, forges, etc., of the Company ought 
to yield a profit of over 500 per cent. 

This IS the chance of a life-time. Safer than 
Government Bonds. More marvellous than the Arabian 
Nights and Aladdin's Lamp, or the Philosopher' s 
Stone. 

Owing- to favorable weather claims can 
be worked the year round. 

CLAIM OWI^ERS' CHANCES. 

Some claim owners will be luckier than others. 
Some may strike veins of pure gold, pay dirt pockets 
and nuggets, and these are liable to be found where 
least expected. Take for instance the following 
authentic facts from " Notes on the Treatment of 
Gold Ore," by Floi-ence O'Driscoll : 

A $40,000 FIND. 

"The story may be cited of the finding of the 
'Welcome Stranger,' the largest nugget yet dis- 
covered. Near Dunnolly, Victoria, two miners, 
weary and broken down by toil and disappointment, 
were aimlessly wandering about, having failed to 
obtain further supplies from the storekeeper who 
had hitherto given them credit. They felt that 
they had come to the end of their tether, and a 
'smoke' was the only solace left for their woes. One 
of the men preparatory to lighting his pipe stuck his 
pick into the ground. It struck something hard and 
dull sounding, which caused them to investigate, the 
result being in a few minutes the laying bare of a 
mass of gold weighing 2,195 oz. troy, bearing the 
mark of the pick. Cash value of ($40,000) forty 
thousand dollars." 

Another instance from O'Driscoll's book is as 
follows : 



"The popular and eagerly sought auriferous de- 
posits are those in which gold is here and there 
visible in irregularly shaped particles, though such 
an occurrence by no means denotes richer deposits 
than those carrying invisible gold or gold-bearing 
compounds; indeed, it is frequently found that the 
latter are more dependable in their return of metal. 
There are numberless instances of the occurrence in 
veins of heavy gold-bearing patches of stone of great 
value, where the metal was in large and irregular 
shaped particles, sometimes in flakes and plates, 
like ham in a pile of sandwiches. One of the most 
valuable of these discoveries was in the Hill End 
Mine, near Sidney, New South Wales. The patch 
of stone in question was about 5 feet high, and on 
an average I foot wide and 6 inches thick. It was 
full of gold in the form of threads, wires, lumps, 
and irregularly shaped particles, and its value was, 
in round figui-es, ;^i5,ooo." 

Take again the case of that most ignorant and 
foolish man, cited in the Su}i of June 7, who found 
in this very town of Marion a diamond (rough) the 
value of which could not have been less than 
$100,000. (See page 6). 

WHY THESE GOLD FIELDS 
HA VE BEEN NEGLECTED. 

Had it not been for the gold fever in California 
in '49, and then the war, free slaves and consequent 
inactivity in the South, these fields (Western North 
Carolina) would by this time have yielded many 
millions of gold and gems. Samples of all forms of 
gold taken from these fields, weights, assay quality, 
purity, percentage, etc., as also many rare gems and 
minerals, besides diamonds, are on exhibition at our 
offices. 

Here is a fortune just within your grasp. 
We need the capital to develop this immensely rich 
field, and besides benefiting by it, you also stand a 
chance to make $1,000 for every dollar you invest. 
We have our reasons. We are not pure philanthro- 
pists — but we are willing to share our find with you, 
and at bed rock prices. 

The public can benefit.— We prefer to 

have a thousand small stockholders and claim-own- 
ers rather than five or ten large ones. We thus get 
active friends and co-workers in every part of the 
country, hasten the development of the mineral re- 
sources of our property, and thus enrich ourselves 
and our shareholders as well. 

Most of the large mining lands and rich mines, 



16 



even in this region, are owned by syndicates of a few 
wealthy men, whose profits are enormous. We want 
thousands of working men. strong, able-bodied and 
self-reliant, clerks, small capitalists, etc. 

There is scarcely a man who cannot lay the founda- 
tion of a fortune by purchasing one share of stock, 
and many can purchase ten and twenty shares. 
Every share purchased means another mining claim 
given away, and on which one is liable to find dia- 
monds, a gold vein, and even a nugget of pure gold, 
as witness the following recent cases quoted from 
the Financial and Mining Record of New York. 

NOKTH CAROLINA. 

Gary. — On the farm of E. A. Yates, two miles 
south of this place, gold has been discovered. Upon 
an analysis being made it was found not to be pure 
gold but gold pyrites, and is estimated to be worth 
$70,000 a hundred feet. The rock in which the 
mineral is imbedded extends across Mr. Yates' farm 
and is several hundred feet in width. It is estimated 
that the cost of mining it will be between $10,000 
and $T 5,000 per hundred feet. Not having sufficient 
capital to develop the property it is stated that the 
owner will dispose of it. 

ASHEVILLE. — A specimen of corrundum weighing 
over 100 lbs. , and which is by far the finest speci- 
men ever discovered in this State is on exhibition in 
this city. The firm of Jenks & Jenks is collecting 
from the various corrundum mines of North Caro- 
lina a full line of samples which will be properly 
marked and exhibited at the World's Fair at 
Chicago. 

ELEVEN POUND GOLD NUGGET. 

" Troy, Norih Carolina. — Nelson Russell, 
while prospecting on a gold-bearing vein on the 
Bunnell Mountain property, found a gold nugget 
weighing eleven pounds, two-thirds of which was 
pure gold. It was found imbedded in a Hint quartz 
vein about twenty feet from the surface. Mr. Rus- 
sell and P. C. Sanders have control of this property, 
and are preparing to push developments. This is 
said to be the largest gold nugget of which there is 
any record, that was ever found in this region. The 
Uwharrie section of this county, which includes the ! 
spot where tins nugget was found, is fast coming to 
the front as a gold producing region. In a strip of 
country extending not more than ten miles in length 
and two miles in width, with the Uwharrie River ! 
running through the centre, not less than $50 000 j 
have been taken out in the last fifteen months by i 



the natives, with only the crudest kind of washing 
machinery, such as the hand rocker and pan. 

" Burke County. — There are now five gold mines 
in operation in this county ; one of them, at Brindle- 
town, has been in active operation for nearly a cen- 
tury. 

"Davidson County. — The superintendent of the 
Silver Valley mines reports the recent discovery of 
probably the richest deposit of silver ore ever found 
in the South. It is a large vein of carbonate of lead 
carrying 70 to 100 ounces of silver and 30 per cent, 
of lead to a ton of ore. 

"Jackson County. — There are valuable deposits 
of nickel ore found in this county that equal any in 
Sudbury, Canada, and are only excelled by the New 
Caledonian deposits. This N. C. ore analyses 11 
to 32 per cent, in metallic nickel. The deposits 
are near Webster, four miles from the W^estern. N. 
C. Railroad. The mine is said to have an inex- 
haustible deposit of chromic iron, analyzing about 
55 per cent, of chromic ore. 

"Oxford. — It is reported that Pennsylvania capi- 
talists have purchased land in Granville county and 
contemplate the developing of copper mines in this 
vicinity. 

" Greensboro. — A gold mine has just been discov- 
ered within ten miles of this place, which is yielding 
the finest specimen of quartz gold. The shaft has 
been sunk eighteen feet, and a vein several feet 
thick has been struck. 

"Albemarle. — A lump of pure gold, weighing 11 
ounces, without any gravel or dirt about it, was 
found a few feet below the surface at the Hearn 
and Hathcock mine near this place recently. 

" Pittsboro. — For many years gold has been ob- 
tained in the section of Chatham county in the vi- 
cinity of Moncure. A shaft has been recently sunk 
about.twelve feet deep on the farm of B. G. Wom- 
ble, and some rich ore has been taken out. A party 
of capitalists have leased this property, and will 
thoroughly test it. 

Shares cheap now, immensely valuable later. — 
This is indeed the chance of a life-time and, unpre- 
cedented as the offer seems, it is not without its 
parallel in the actual facts of the history of gold 
mining, as witness the following : 

PAYING MINES. 

The Salt Lake Tribune furnishes the following- 
interesting figures relating to the Ontario mine in 
Utah • 



17 



" Suppose a man had bought 1,000 shares of On- 
tario stock fourteen years ago, when he might have 
done so for $20,000. There have been paid on the 
stock 177 dividends of 50 cents per share in the 
fourteen years, equivalent to $88 50 per share, or 
$88,500 on 1,000 shares. Suppose he now sells the 
stock, as he can do, for $42,500, put the principal 
of the investment in his pocket, and add the re- 
maining proceeds of the sale, namely, $22,500 to 
the dividends. He would have as the profits of the 
transaction, $iog,ooo. If he had put out his gains 
annually at 7 per cent, interest, he would have re- 
ceived in interest $13,255 ; total profits, $122,255, 
or $8,732 a year ; about 45 per cent, a year. But 
if he had not put the money at interest he would 
have reaUzed nearly 40 per cent, per annum on his 
investment. 

■'It will thus be seen that the Ontario stock is bet- 
ter than Government Bonds as an investment. The 
dividends are paid with equal regularity, and are 
ten times larger. 

" Anent this excellent showing of the Ontario, is 
a refreshing incident in the early history of the 
Copper Queen. General John A. Wiley bought 
that mine soon after it was located, for $8,000 — 
one-quarter for himself and the other three-quarters 
for friends ; but through the negligence of the man 
to whom he intrusted the details of purchase and 
payment of the money, he lost the mine, as an agent 
of Flood & Mackay stepped in and gave the poor 
prospector a cool $100,000 and the retention of a 
one-eighth interest for his claims and entered into 
an agreement with the millionaire to work the mine 
on a certain percentage. The company was slocked 



for $12,000,000. So, you see, the General's one- 
fourth interest would have stood him $3,000,000. 
The Copper Queen is still a great mine, while it is 
said that the agent whj took the contract of work- 
ing the same has pulled out as high as $60,000 in 
one month for his percentage. 

" A volume could be filled with such cases as 
these, but the two will serve as illustrations of what 
is going on in the mining camps of the West. It 
may not be inappropriate, however, to refer the 
reader to a just issued report of the Director of the 
Mint on the production of the precious metals for 
the calendar year i8go. According to that author- 
ity, the gold product of the United States was i,- 
588,880 fine ounces of the value of $32,845,000, an 
increase of $45,000 over the product of the preced- 
ing year. The silver product of the mines approxi- 
mated 54,000,000 ounces, corresponding at the 
average price of silver during ihe year to $57,225,- 
000, and at the coining value of silver to $70,464,- 
645. This is an increase of 4,500,000 fine ounces 
in the silver product of the country as compared 
with last year. The coinage executed during the 
last calendar year was the largest in the history of 
the mint service, aggregating 124,025,365 pieces, of 
the value of $61,054,882.84, of which $20,467,182 
were gold and $38,043,004 silver dollars." 

Not only gold and precious stones, but other very 
valuable minerals are to be found here, and are sus- 
ceptible of the most thorough development. Co- 
rundum, kaoline, platinum, lead, silver, and above 
all. mica, the yield of which is now comparatively 
scarce. 



NEWSPAPER AND 



OTHER EXTRACTS. 



From State Geological, Report ice note the follow- 
iny : 

Tlie Gold Gravels and Accompan j iiig Vein 
Deposits of tlie Piedmont and 
Mountain Regions. 

The gold gravels in North Carolina have a distribu- 
tion as wide as that of the crystalline rocks. Their 
occurrence at a number of places in the middle region 
of the State has been mentioned already in describing 
the mines of that region (pages 236, 241, 247, 254, 258 
and others)— the most extensive and important of 
these deposits being in Montgomery and adjacent 
counties. It remains now to describe the more im- 
portant of these deposits occui-ring in the Piedmont 
and mountain regions of the State. In these regions, 
as in localities already described, gold occurs both in 
the gravel beds and in veins ; and at many places both 
placer mining and vein mining are prosecuted. 

These gold-bearing gravel deposits usually occur 
along the lower slopes of hills and mountains, in the 
valleys between them, along the beds of streams, in 
their channels, on the benches, and in a variety of 
ways ; also in ancient eroded basins or channels, which 
neither in situation nor direction bear any relations 
to channels of existing streams. They are usually of 
no great length or breadth, but in some localities, viz., 
the South Mountains, Vein Mountain and Hunt's 
Mountain, they are quite numerous. Their thickness 
varies from a few feet to 80 feet and more. In the 
basins and at the foot of the slopes, the gold usually 
occurs with the coarser gravel, near the bottom of the 
deposit— more largely along the bottoms of ancient 
and modern streams ; higher up, on the sides of the 
hills, it is more generally distributed throughout the 
entire superficial earthy deposit. 

In the region last mentioned, a considerable amount 
of mining has been done, and the deposits (placers) 
here are the most extensive of the State. The area 
over which they are spread, in the counties of Burke, 
McDowell and Rutherford, is 15 to 20 miles long from 
northeast to southwest, following the general direc- 
tion of the mountain ranges, and from 10 to 15 miles 
wide. It touches the northwest corner of Cleveland 
county, and probably includes the Polk county de- 
posits, some 25 miles Southwest. 

Almost everywhere within the limits indicated 
gold is found, but not always in paying quantities. 
This large area may be divided into three narrow 
belts, the exact limits of which cannot be given, but 
which are nevertheless fairly well defined. 

The third, or McDowell belt, is 4 miles still further 
west. It has a width of about 2 miles, with Hunt's 
Mountain and Nichols' Mountain for its center, It is 
situated on the head- waters of North Muddy Creek, 



and of the Second Broad River, and for the most part 
to the east of the road from Marion to Rutherfordton. 

An immense quantity of gold has been obtained from 
the mines of this region since their opening in 1829— pro- 
bably between two and three million dollars ; and I am 
informed by some of the older citizens, that just be- 
fore the California gold deposits began to attract at- 
tention, as many as 3,000 hands might have been seen 
at work on one of the streams of the region. 

The operations of the past, when little capital and 
machinery were employed, were necessarily^ confined 
to such deposits as lay near water, or to which water 
could easily be brought. There is still a large amount 
of gold in the beds which remains untouched, as well 
as in those which have been carelessly or rudely 
worked ovei"— some of them more than once. Indeed, 
some of the richest of these deposits have remained 
unworked on account of the difliculty of bringing a 
supply of water to their level, being situated consider- 
ably above the neighboring streams, on the higher 
slopes and benches of the foot hills of the mountains. 

The total amount of the precious metals produced 
by the mines of North Carolina up to December 31, 
1886, so far as U. S. official records afford evidence, is 
as follows : 

Gold :511,089,502 36 

Silver 84,019 75 



Total $11,173,522 11 

It is certain, however, that this is but a part of the 
production, for much of it is known to have been ex- 
ported directly by companies having head-quarters 
abroad. Moreover, up to the time of the discovery of 
gold in California, there was a large demand for 
native gold by jewelers, and the Carolina gold was 
in request on account of its beauty. It is not an un- 
reasonable conjecture that the amount which has in 
various ways escaped official notice is as large as that 
on record ; and that the total amount produced in the 
State can hardly have been less than $22,000,000.00. 

At the present writing the following mines are at 
work : Portis, in Nash county ; the Cagle, Burns and 
Bell, Moore county ; the Steel, Coggins and Russell, in 
Montgomery county ; the Crowell, in Stanly county ; 
the Uwharrie and Hoover Hill, in Randolph county ; 
Gold Hill and Icenhour, in Rowan county; the 
Phcenix. Rocky River and Reed, in Cabarrus county ; 
the Henderson,Rudisill, St. Catherine, Point,Davidson, 
Cathey, Hill, Dunn and Ray, in Mecklenburg county ; 
the Howie, Hemby and Stearns, in Union county ; the 
Catawba, in Gaston county ; the Vein Mountain and 
Marion Bullion (Granville), in McDowell county ; the 
Hancock, Mills, Carolina Queen, in Burke county ; the 



19 



Boilston, in Henderson county ; the Double Branch, in 
Polk county— in all 35. 

N. C. Herald, Mj22, 1891. 

three: golden i.iinks. 

At the banquet given to our friends from Stanly 
and Montgomery on Wednesday evening last, the 
responses to the different toasts proposed were un- 
usually good. Among these toasts was " The Three 
(jrolden Links— Their Mineral Wealth," which was re- 
sponded to by Mr. F. B. Arendell. This is an interest- 
ing subject to many of our readers, so we requested i 
the privilege of printing Mr. Arendell's address. He 
said : l< 

"I haven't come with facts and figures, Mr- 
Chairman, for these I haven't had time to tabulate, 
but 1 come with an abiding faith in the great wealth 
that sleeps beneath the surface of these three grand 
old counties. Very aptly do you, Mr. Chairman, 
designate them 'the three golden links.' Golden 
links they are in the great Apalachian chain of min- 
eral hills. 1 am told that down in the good old 
county of Montgomery gold nnu^cis lunc l)een legal 
tender since lonn' before tlic time when old Sam 
Christian picked uji liis iirsi inmget from the foot of 
a majestic Uwlwuiir hill, lam told also tliat all up 
and down tlie iiirtmesqne Uwharrie, for miles on 
either side, liiat ulieiiever a ray of sunlight peeps 
through the waving boughs of a whispering pine and 
finds its way to the surface it kisses into brilliancy 
myriads of shining particles of this precious metal 
The noisy waters of the brooklets that wind these 
Uwharrie hills wash the sand out of the eyes of 
countless nuggets, and I think I am safe in saying 
that the native fat backs and trout that swim up and 
down the Uwharrie and the Yadkin are froni a gold 
l)asis standpoint about the richest lish that swim in 
Southern streams. They doubtless have ample 
funds per capita and they are all of a solid gold basis. 
One of these days the river miner is going to disturb 
tlieii- linaucial basis and rob them of their glittering 
wealth." 

From the Richmond Dispatch, Saturday, Aug. 1,1891^ 
A RICH GOLD FIND. 

TWO N.^TIVES FOUND WITH FOUR QUARTS OF GOLD 
NUGGETS. THEY WERE SECRETLY WORKING 
A RICH GOLD - VEIN— THE WORK 
STOPPED AND SENATOR SPOONER 
NOTIFIED, 

Salisiu^rv, N. (\. Jiili/ ?/. - It is reported b\- i)arties 
from :MoiitKonier.\ eouiit.N thai anotlier rieii gold-tiiid 
lias been made close to tiie rwhanie rixci in that 
county which will |iei-!iaj)s siirpas> I he Sjip.ders" lind. 
The facts as learned are these : 

FOUR (jUARTd OF GOLD NUGGETS. 

It was discovered that two of the natives had about 
four <iuarts of gold nuggets, and it was also discov^ered 
about the same time that they were in the habit of 
spending their nights away from home. 

WORKING a RICH VEIN. I 

They were wjitched, and thy fact was revealed that 



they had discovered and were working a very rich 
vein on the property recently bought by Senator 
Spooner, of Wisconsin, and associate. 

THE WORK STOPPED. 

A telegram has been sent to Spooner and the work 
has been stopped. A number of rich finds has been 
made in this the richest mining section of the 
Rockies. 

SUPREME COURT DECISIONS. 
Tyre vs. Glen. 

{7 til Jones Report, page 321.) 
All water courses, not navigable for sea vessels, but 
capable of being navigated by boats, flats, and rafts 
technically styled unnavigable streams, are the sub- 
ject of special grant by the State under the entry 
laws. 

When the bed of the water course is not included 
in the grant, but the stream is called for as one of the 
boundaries, the grantee is entitled, as an incidental 
easement, to go to the middle of the stream, and may 
exei'cise and enjoy that easement for the purpose of 
catohing fish, or in any other manner not incompatible 
with the right which the public have in the stream 
for water communication between different points on 
it. The mode and extent of the enjoyment of this 
easement may be regulated by statute, and as the 
riparian proprietors paid nothing into the public 
treasury for it, the soil which composes the bed of the 
river may be . ranted to others. 

Cornelius vs. Glen. 
(7th Jones Report, page 512). 

The Yadkin river, not being a navigable stream, a 
grant from the State of the bed of tlie ri\ er passes 
it as does any other grant of land, and tlie legisla- 
ture has no power to take it away, either for private 
or public purposes, without making compensation to 
the owner. 

A GREAT FIND. 

Gold represents concentrated wealth; hence, the 
finding of large quantities of the precious metal is the 
best of news in a purely wordly sense. 

Mr. Carter, a gentleman living in Montgomery 
county, came to Salisbury last week and reported 
most wonderful stories of a big find of gold neai' his 
home, saying that over a husliel had been taken out in 
the last four weeks. The statement seemed so fabulous 
that before giving it to the world we concluded to 
send a representative down to the place (it being only 
thirty-five miles) and liiid out the facts, which are as 
follows, and which we can safely voueli toi': 

The discovery was made on a in(;ce of land con- 
trolled by Mr. i*. ( '. Saunders, Ijnl w hi< h hdon-ed to a 
brother in Texas, The discover.\ \\ as made a( ciden- 
tally by a > oung man who was out, t nrkey ]i unt ing, 
and work was at once begun in washing the sur- 
face. While this was being done three little stringers 
or veins were uncovered which were nearly all gold. 
The find was kept quiet as long as possible, but when 
it became generally known the hiothei- was tele- 
graphed for, and he replied to stoji the \v(^ik at once 



20 



Until his arrival. Our representative happened on 
the ground at a very inopportune time, being only a 
few hours after the hands had been ordered to stop 
work, and for this reason could not see the work in 
progress, but from interviews had with the men and 
from he saw he does not hesitate in saying that Mr. 
Carter's statement' in regard to the bushel was 
correct. 

About half of this gold was taken out of the top 
surface and the remainder from three parallel 
stringers or veins about eight feet apart and about 
one-half inch in thickness. Two of these veins have 
been sunk to the depth of about 20 feet, while the 
other has a depth of only a few feet. 

The people in the neighborhood are all very much 
excited over the find, and very naturally so. They 
now talk of gold by the pound, while heretofore it was 
only by the grain. 

O^ir representative ivas told hy several parties 
whom he knew and had confidence in, that on the 
afternoon of the last day they worJced that one 
man took out with only a pick, and in a very 
short time, probably two Jiotirs, over 2,000 pen- 
ny iveights of gold ; that ttvo young men, Morris 
and Cornelison, washed out in a day and a half 
over ten and otie-half pounds of gold ; that one 
man got permission to work on the tailings, and 
rocked out 42 pennyweights in three rocker fulls, 
and was then stopped. Many other stories of a 
like kind tvere told, which for lack of space we 
omit. Our representative, tvho is a practical 
miner, offered $10 for the privilege of working 
two hours, but tvas asked $50 for that privilege. 

All this was learned on the ground, and we are sat" 
isfied that it is as near correct as possible to get at the 
facts. 

The property is situated in a gold-bearing belt 
extending many miles, in which large quantities of 
gold have been found in the creeks and gulches, 
and there are thousands of places in the neighbor- 
hood where the outside indications are better for 
gold than where this was found. 

Other late finds our representative heard of in the 
same neighborhood, notable of which were those of a 
darkey who alone took out over $1,000 in less than two 
weeks, and that of the Nail land, on which big finds 
had been made, one nugget weighing over a pound- 
all within the past month.— CaroZ ma Watchman, Nov. 

14, 1879. 

Latest From tlie Oold Field. 

The Watchman has continued its efforts to get cor- 
rect information concerning this important discovery 
of gold in Montgomery county. From a trusted 
source we have the following : " To-day, for the first 
time, I went to see the big bonanza. You will find the 
Watchman's account correct in the main. Its esti- 
mate is said to be below the amount taken out. They 
were finding nothing big to-day, and it is probable 
that this will be the case for some days, as the mine 
has been worked in such a way they will have to do a 
great deal of dead work to get at the seams or stringers 
carrying the gold. These are three in number, run- 
ning east and west, and have been very rich. The 



rock binding them is gradually getting harder as they 
go down. Nelson Russell's cut is 22 feet deep, and 
cannot be carried much deeper with the pick without ; 
the aid of poAvder. The rock binding the seams is of a ' 
grayish color, which looks like decomposed limestone 
or mountain rock (probably huronian slate with some 
impurities. Editor,) about the same as was found at 
the ' Crump Mine,' in this vicinity. Much of the gold 
has a coating of black oxide of iron, and large quanti- 
ties of it is thrown back as rubbish. So far most of it 
is taken from the seams with pick or pocket knife, 
and a few strokes with the hammer frees it from rock 
and dirt. The seams are about half an inch in thick- 
ness and are of a black brownish appearance. When 
they contain gold they do not adhere to the surround- 
ing rock, but where there is not much gold they are 
pretty firmly attached. Upon the whole, it is a poor 
looking place for a gold mine, but so far it has been 
proven very rich." 

The mine is located about six miles from Eldorado 
and two miles from Uwharrie post-ofliee, on a part of 
what is known as the Saunders place. Is bounded on 
two sides by the Worth property, known as the Worth 
Mine, on one side by property belonging to A. and E. 
Kron, and on the other side by the Bunnell Mountain 
mining tract, and is near the centre of a locality rich 
in placer diggings.— CaroMjia Watchman, Nov. 38, 1889. 

Montgomery County. 

A representative of the Watchman has just re- 
turned from Montgomery county and reports that the 
gold fever is unabated in that section. The hills in 
the gold belt are full of prospectors, not alone from 
that county, but Stanly, Davidson, Randolph, Union 
and other counties are represented. 

Work at the Saunders Mine has stopped, owing to 
the unsatisfactory condition of the title to the prop- 
erty. The Saunders find will undoubtedly lead to the 
discovery of other veins, as the people in that section 
had never looked for gold before except in the creeks, 
branches and drains, but now their attention is turned 
to the hills and surface deposits. Quite a number of 
good prospects have already been struck. Among 
them is one on Jas. G. Cotton's land, where he un- 
covered a slate vein over ten feet in width. Jess and 
Dump Morris are opening a good prospect on the Jim 
Kronland ; John Beaman has two good prospects ; 
one on Horse Mountain and one on Spencers Creek, 
and Sheriff I. E. Saunders thinks he has struck a 
bonanza on his land at Uwharrie P. O. 

Among the recent finds in that section is that of a 
diamond on the Polly Cranford land by Clay Morgan, 
which he sold to an expert named Brown. 

The gold fever is very high, and it is very probable 
that it has not reached its climax yet. 

The Appalachian Mine, near Eldorado, is running 
on full time with 20 stamps, and the Russell Mine is 
running with 40 stamps.— CaroIi?ia Watchman, Dec. 

13, 1889. ^ 

^ Tlie Montgomery Bonanza. 

Editor Watchman:— 

Dear Sir :— My name has been and is still being used 
in connection with the telegram regarding the newly 



21 



discovered gold mine on the Saunders property, which 
has caused so much comment by different men of the 
press and criticised by many persons, some of wliom 
pronounce it too fabulous for recognition, while your 
representative with many other reliable people en- 
dorse it. Below I will givv^ you some other features of 
the bonanza. I shall confine myself to what I have 
seen and gathered from reliable persons who have 
been working in the mine. 

One man, who claims to have been working the 
poorest part of the mine, took out 1,450 dwt.. which 
was interspersed with quartz, the c.uartz being ham- 
mered and taken out 710 dwt. of pure gold remained, 
or little less than half of the original. This was the 
result of :.'4 hours" work. 

One man, who. by the way is an ex-County Commis- 
sioner, found in the same length of time 504 dwt. 

Another party began work one morning, and at 9 
o'clock. A. :Nr., same day, had found and reported to 
" headquarters " four (4) pounds, and at 12 o'clock 
same day reported one pound. 

I am reliably informed that eleven (11) pounds 
weighed on grocery scales, v. as the toll resulting from 
the work of one week. (About five pounds are not 
included in the latter.) 

I saw some of the hands dividing their gold in the 
same manner as would two boys in dividing apples, 
one would take a piece and another in like manner 
iintil it was all exhausted, all of which seemed to be 
satisfactory Avith the parties concerned. 

This was while Mr. Tebe Saunders Avas on his trip 
to Texas, and after I ordered tlie men to stop all work 
until furtlier orders. 

There are many other instances of equal impor- 
tance, but space, I fear, will not allow further de- 
scription at present. So let it suffice to say that the 
half has never been told," Neither do I believe that 
the true estimate and value of this property will ever 
be revealed. Whj'? Because, I am informed that when 
the claimant hired a man or gave him permission to 
work he was first apprised of the order, " Do not let 
any person or persons, under any circumstances, know 
what you find." I think the above order has been 
strictly adhered to by the emploj'es, as they indig- 
nantly refuse to tell anything about the mine, es- 
pecially of the amount of gold they have found. 

Mr. Nelson Russell and James Cotton, Esq., who 
worked in the mine, are both open for interviews by 
an\ vepi i'x'utative of the press or otherwise. Think 
the above loss in the 1,450 dwt. lot will not do for a 
criterion for a basis of true value, simply because this 
quantity contained much more quartz than does the 
main bulk taken out. 

AV. M. Carter. 

Nails, N. C, Nov. 30, 1889. 



Latest Developments at tlic Tebe Saunders 
Mine. 

Sheriff I. E. Saunders and C. C. Wade, Esq., were up 
to the Sauu'iers Mine day before yesterday, and 
brought up news of quite an exciting nature in regard 
to the developments now being made at this extraor- 
dinarily rich gold deposit. 



These men met at the mine Senator J. C. Spoonel* 
and Hon. H. F. Taylor, of Wisconsin (the recent pur- 
chasers of the property). Senator Geo. Hearst, of 
California, Jno. A. Kirk, Esq., of Washington City, 
and several other capitalists of the North and West 
who, we suppose, came down to see and know for 
themselves the truth as to its reputed great value. 

Two blasts were made in the clearly exposed vein, 
located at the bottom and about the middle of the 
main shaft, which is not more than 30 feet deep, and 
from these two blasts we are told that not less than 
S2,U00 worth of pure gold nuggets was quickly gathered 
up, and this does not include the gold that was yet to 
be separated from the quartz ore thrown up by the 
blasts, which ore sparkled more or less with visible 
particles of the precious metal. 

Such a mine— a veritable bonanza indeed— as tliis 
has proved to be, naturally creates excitement ; how- 
ever, we believe our people have about cooled down, 
but those gentlemen from the NorthAvest Avho were 
there Tuesday were perfectly astounded, and Senator 
Hearst was heard to remark that he had seen the rich 
mines of California, but this was the richest gold de- 
posit he had ever seen. 

This magnificent prospect will probably be the 
means of selling a great deal of the mineral lands in 
this and Randolph counties,especially on the Twharrie 
range during the present year, and Avill likely lead to 
other rich Aiscovevies.— Montgomery Vidette, Jan. 
IG, 1890. 

We learned from a gentleman from Eldorado 
Montgomery county, Fridaj', that parties from Cali- 
fornia were now in that country prospecting for gold 
in the bottoms along the Uwharrie river ; that in 
every case where pits had been sunk they had found 
the gravel to be very rich and wei'e buying what thej" 
could of it. The best of the bed of this river is con- 
trolled by parties here and in all probability work 
will be begun on it this spring.— Ca/-o///u( ^Va^c}ln^an, 

Jan. 20, 1890. 

I<atest From Montgomery. 

We learn from the Greensboro Patriot that Mr. 
John Kirk, the original purchaser of the Tebe Saund- 
ers mine, has sold a one-half interest in it to a north- 
ern syndicate for $100,000. 

We also learn from the same source that Mr. I. E , 
Saunders, the Sheriff of Montgomery county, has dis- 
covered on his property on the Uwharrie river, and 
about one mile from the Saunders mine, a very rich 
find of gold, on which he gave an option for ninety 
days for §35,000. 

Other finds in this wonderfully rich neighborhood 
are reported.— Carofuia Watchman, Feh. 13, 1890. 

Fi'om the Atlanta Constitution. 

Marion, N. C, April 23.— [Special correspondence 
Constitution^.— It is well that this busy place has been 
called the "Magnetic Citj^ of the 3Iountains,'" for there is 
everything in the surroundings to indicate that the dis- 
triction is deserved. 

The superior railroad location of Marion is another 
feature that gives her strength and hope. She is at the 
intersection of the Charleston, Cincinnati and Chicago 



22 



railroad, and the Western ISTorth Carolina division of the 
Richmond and Danville, a position of the most decided 
merit, since it gives her two trunk lines running north 
and south and east and west. 

There is everything to indicate a marvelous store of 
wealth in the surroundings, and to-day -I have taken the 
trouble to make a hurried investigation of the diversified 
interests that seem to congregate here. I find that iron 
exists in the mosc abundant supply, the same assaying 
about 60 per cent, metallic iron, showing little phosphor- 
ous and sulphur, and being refreshingly free from titanic 
acid. There is also an all-necessary supply of limestone 
for fluxing, and, with the necessary advantages of trans- 
portation and the improved methods of mining, there 
seems to be notbing in the way of Marion's future indus- 
trial growth. She is in a five hours' haul of the coal 
region now, and I thoroughly believe that this needed 
auxiliary will be supplied from nearer fields, as there is 
every indication of coal in the country closely surround- 
ing Marion. If this discovery is made, and I am forced 
to believe that it will be, what else will be necessary to 
make the lists of natural blessings complete ? 

She has gold— and in rich y,eins— as is clearly indicated 
by the successful placer and quartz mining that has been 
encouraged for years, and which is still profitably pur- 
sued. There are ten or fifteen mines being worked within 
a radius of twenty miles of Marion, the most important 
of which being the Vein mountain, about ten miles dis- 
tant. 

There are also ten or twelve mica mines that are being 
operated within a radius of twenty miles of this point. 
With no other means of transportation from the mines 
but by wagon trains, this industry is so important that 
Marion shows the largest shipment of mica of any point 
in the world. Then there exists in considerable quanti- 
ties, asbestos, talc and kaolin, while the best building and 
paving stones that are quarried are to be had here. 

The marble beds of this section are very fine, both in 
quality, variety and supply. Immense ledges of all the 
popular and desirable varieties of white, blue, gray and 
black, are to be found within eight miles of Marion. 
These ledges run from northwest to southeast, and must 
of it is to be found in hills, and in such position as to 
make the mining very easy. The quality of this stone 
is very fine, it being susceptible of the highest polish, 
and showing the most superior crystallization. The 
white marble, especially, has been compared to the best 
Italian grade, and the black being of such quality, and 
existing in such quantities, as to make it decidedly valu- 
able. 

I have also noticed here a vast deal of timber, embrac- 
ing curled poplar, walnut, oak, hickory, ash, maple, wild 
cherry and mahogany, all in easy access. This is a very 
important interest, and the different woods named above 
are to be had in abundant supply from the surrounding 
counties of McDowell, Yancey and Mitchell, a territory 
of which Marion is the center. While all the woods 
named exist in large quantities except mahogany,which 
of itself is a paying growth, the most popular and best 
paying woods seem to be curled poplar, a beautiful 
growth, and ash, walnut and oak. 

This is also one of the greatest agricultural sections in 
the world. The superior adaptability of the land to farm- 



ing pursuits and truck culture is of such importance as to 
make it far in advance of many sections that trust alone 
to their agricultural merit. The celebrated Catawba 
valley lands are as fine and productive as any that can 
be found within the range of my investigation. These 
luxuriant expanses of verdant freshness present a scene 
that is certainly not less inviting than the magnificent 
range of mountains that so majestically encircle them, 
since they lend grandeur to these picturesque upheavals 
whose rugged beauty is intensified by the sparkling 
streams that fall in dancing mirthfulness down their 
broken slopes, and the majestic growth that gives stately 
grandeur to the towering peaks that spend their existence 
in cloudland. Such valleys, possessing such distinctive 
fertility, lying in the lap of the beautiful Blue Ridge, are 
enough to give an eloquent touch to the most prosaic pen 
and fill to exultancy the most mercenary real estate 
shark who ever disparaged beauteous surroundings in 
order that a greedy purse might be filled. These lands * 
are grand in their natural location, glorious in the per- 
fection of their loveliness and surpassing in their splendid 
productiveness. No pen can describe the ethereal charms 
of the picture which they present to the cultivated eye, 
and no disparaging tongue can blight their attractiveness 
by any words that may be spoken to one who has seen 
them. The picture is complete, the landscape is perfect, 
and nothing save an infinite hand can detract from the 
glory of the surroundings, nor does it lie within the 
power of a finite mind to picture the beauteous grandeur 
that in ever3' direction presents a scene of splendor. 

These valley lands possess so much natural fertility 
that they furnish profitable investment to growers of 
wheat, corn and other cereals— as well as furnish an 
invitation to successful tobacco culture, an industry 
that, while yet in its infancy here, will soon become 
one of the most profitable enterprises to the progres- 
sive farmer. Clover also grows luxuriantly here. 

As much or more may be said of their desirability 
for fruit culture— it having been practically demon- 
strated that apples can be grown Avith great success 
whose fiavor and keeping qualities are not surpassed 
by the most famous variety growai in New York. They 
also grow to great perfection in shape and color, ma- 
turing to a degree that makes them eagerly sought for 
by lovers of the fruit. 

The peach is none the less a success, as some of the 
most luscious varieties of this superior fruit are 
grown here, which will rival in flavor the famous 
Georgia peach, a claim that is distinctive, but based on 
the experience and judgment of practical fruit groAV- 
ers and fastidious consumers. 

Grapes grow to the greatest perfection, and the rea- 
son that the culture of this delicious fruit has not 
been wide spread is the meagre railroad facilities that 
have embarrassed shipment. This particular section 
is known as the home of the celebrated Catawba 
grape, a fruit that enjoys great popularity as one of 
the sweetest attractions of the vineyard. The county 
around Marion is well adapted to the cultivation of 
every variety of grape, and the near future will see 
the hillsides of this section hanging with beautiful 
clusters of this beautiful fruit. It has been shown 
that the valley lands are not alone adapted to the 



successful culture of the grape, as just as liue results 
can be had where the hillsides are properly prepared. 

JNIarion's location is admirably set forth in the fol- 
lowing reference to her railroad advantages, includ- 
ing the two lines already built and those in contem- 
plation, as well as to her relative distance from the 
principal cities of the country, all of which speaks for 
itself. : 

" From Knoxville east to the Atlantic ocean there is 
not a town or city that has cross or cojJipetitive rail- 
roads, with outlets to a market where manufacturers 
could dispose of their goods. The Charleston, Cincin- | 
nati and Chicago railroad is now completed from | 
Charleston, S. C, to Marion, N. C. The contract for 
the completion of this road to Ashland, on the Ohio 
River, is let, and a portion of the road already graded, j 
Tliis road crosses the Western North Carolina, a 
division of the Richmond and Dan^-ille railroad, at 
Marion, N. C, and the East Tennessee, Virginia and 
Georgia railroad, at Johnson City, Tenn., thereby 
making Johnson Citj-, Tenn., and Marion, N. C, the 
only two cities east of Knoxville, and the only points 
between Knoxville and the Atlantic ocean, a distance 
of about oOO miles, tliat have competitive railroads, or 
at wliicli a manufacturer can establish business, as 
comi)etit i ve freight rates to a maniifacturer are of great 
importance and an indispensable necessity to his suc- 
cess, and this we all know can only be obtained where 
there are two or more independent traffic lines, such 
as Marion, N. C, now enjoys.'" 

Below is an interesting table of distances, giving Marion 
world wide connections : 

Miles 

Marion to Chicago 952 

Marion to Cincinnati 538 

Marion to Richmond , . 338 

Marion to Savannah 420 

Marion to Augusta 288 

Marion to Knoxville 171 

Marion to Charleston 319 

Marion to Asheville 43 

Marion to Black's, S. C 70 

From the notes of a thoughtful writer, who h s spent 
his life in western North Carolina, I quote the following : 

Any one, from the foregoing description, will realize at 
a glance that the climate of such a territory must be 
dry, elastic, bracing, exhilarating and liealthful. The 
cold winds from the north are broken by the protecting 
heights of the Blue Ridge and thrown up high into the 
atmospheric currents, leaving the entire county pleasant 
and protected. 

The county is a grandly shaped cove or hollow in the 



great range of mountains surrounding it, and no better 
spot can be found for healthfulness. There are no cold, 
steady winds in winter. Snow falls rarely, and is of short 
duration. Violent snowstorms are unknown. 



Gold mining in N. €. 

THE UWHARRIE RIVER SECTION THE RICHEST IN THE 
STATE. 

Take a pan full of dirt anywhere on my land and 
if it doesn't show gold I will give you any fifty acres 
I own." 

What do you think of that for an offer? A repre- 
sentative of the Journal was in Montgomery county 
a few days ago and the above proposition was made to 
him by several land owners in what is known as the 
Uwharrie river section, the best mining locality, but 
the least known of any in the State. 

Up to a few months ago it was a long, hard drive 
forty miles over rough roads, but since the completion 
of the Yadkin railroad a drive of ten or twelve miles 
takes you to the centre of it. If you desire to see the 
different methods used in obtaining gold this is the 
place to go, for in a distance of ten miles, beginning, 
at the mouth of the Uwharrie and not more than one 
mile from it on either side, you can see all the pro- 
cesses used for saving gold, from the crudest to the 
most elaborate. 

If you like we will take a trip through the country 
together. Starting from Salisburj' we go down the 
Yadkin railroad to Albemarle, the county, seat of 
Stanly, and hiring a conveyance we start next morn- 
ing for the Eldorado of North Carolina. After a pleas- ' 
ant drive of eight miles we cross the Yadkin river 
just north of the Uwharrie, and on inquiring we find 
that we are only three-quarters of a mile from the 
Jloratock mines, so Ave decide to make that our first 
objective point. Arriving at the mine we find that 
the greatest activity prevails. Mr. MufHy, the super- 
intendent, is getting the new mill ready to begin work 
and in a week's time expects to begin milling ore with 
ten stamps. We are shown about the mine by the 
superintendent and see huge piles of ore, in which you 
can sometimes see the gold sparkling, nicely stacked 
up at the head of a tramway ready to be put in the 
ears and conveyed to the mill, about three hundred 
yards down the mountain. The mine is being worked 
as an open cut, that is, no shafts are being sunk and 
everything is expected to go through the mill, from, 
the grass roots down. We learn that the property is 
owned by three northern parties, and that it is a close 
company and no stock is for sale. — Danville JouruaL 



HOW OOL.I> IS PANNED. 

Leaving the Moratock we find ourselves after a circu- 
itous route of half a mile at the "Worth mine, and here 
^ we are initiated in the mysteries of using the pan and 
hand-rocker. We hear a peculiar noise on the branch 
below us, and wending our way in that direction we find 
an old man busily engaged in rocking what looks to us 
like an old barrel sa wn through lengthwise. He tells us 
, this is a hand-rocker. The dirt and rocks are put in it 
with several buckets of water, and with a motion like 
rocking a baby's cradle the dirt is dissolved and is poured 
out with the water. This is kept up until the rocks are 
all clean, and then by a different motion all the heavier 



Wishing to locate ourselves, and knowing no other 
point to inquire for, we find that we are half a mile from 
the Uwharrie. 

Two hundred'yards below, at the forks of a road, we 
find two stores, and are surprised to learn thatgold— dust 
gold— is a CO mmon currency of the country, and that a 
good part of the population depend entirely on the gold 
that they get out of the streams for their living. Here 
we are also shown considerable quantities of the precious 
metal, and are allowed to handle one nugget worth sev- 
eral hundred dollars. 

Mr. Sanders, the proprietor of one of the stores, goes 
with us over to the Sanders Mine and shows us where not 




NEGROES WORKING SAND AND GRAVEL WITH PAN AND ROCKER. 



matter is settled to the bottom and the lighter rocks are 
thrown out. When this has been contiunt d until there 
is but very little left in the bottom the gold is picked out 
and the rocker is ready to be refilled. We also see at 
this place the panning operation going on, which is done 
in very much the same way, only on a much smaller 
scale, a pan about the size of a common frying pan being 
used. Upon inquiry we learn that the property was 
worked years ago on a very extensive scale, and that a 
large amount of gold had been taken from it. But at 
present the parties working on it are paying a certain 
part of what they find as a royalty, and are netting about 
$3 per day to the hand. 



less than $50,000 in gold nuggets were taken out in one 
month about a year ago by the people living in the neigh- 
borhood. Since then Senator Spooner and associates 
iiave bought the property, with the Worth Mine and sev- 
eral others, and expect to put up an extensive hydraulic 
plant in the near future. 

Leaving the Sanders mine we go up the river, taking 
our time, by way of Cedar, Haw, Buck Mountain, Bird, 
Mosely, Adeline, Hog Pen Branch, Dry Hollow and Bun- 
nell Mountain mines, all gravel, and see the Long Tom, 
Sluice Boxes and Log Rocker in operation. The Long 
Tom is a long box-like concern with sides only a few 
inches high; along the bottom, which is about two feet 



2f» 



wide, is nailed cross strips, and at the upper end raised 
above the bottom is a piece of sheet iron punched full of 
holes and water running on it. On this is placed the 
dirt to be washed and the water carries everything except 
the coarse rocks through the holes on to the bottom of 
the box, the heavier particles, such as gold, remaining, 
while the dirt is carried away by the water. The Sluice 
Box is simply a trough with a flat bottom, across which 
are nailed strips or riffles. It is placed in the creek so 
that water will run through it and the dirt is dumped 
into it and carried off by the water, leaving any nuggets 
that may have been in it lodged against the riffles. 
The Log Rocker is a section of a large tree hollowed 
out with grooves cut in the bottom in which quick-silver 
is placed; a small stream of water flows into it at the 
upper end and the dirt is gradually fed into it and washed 
down bj' a rocking motion over the quicksilver, which, 
takes up the gold as soon as it touches it. This is a slow 
process, but an excellent one when the gold is fine. 

On up the river we gobj' Riggins' Hill, about two hun- 
dred yards from the stream where the gentlemanly owner 
Mr. H. McCoy, Jr., gives us our first experience under 
ground. We are allowed to get in die bucket and the 
hoisting engine slowly lowers us down the main shaft one 
hundred feet under the surface and we are shown 
three parallel veins of brown quartz 'averaging in width 
fr.)m one to three feet and worth $125 per ton ii\ gold and 
silver. The work going on here is of a developing nature, 
but extensive works for the proper treatment of the ore 
will soon be erected. 

At Burneys bridge, ten miles above the mouth of 
the Uwharrie, we cross that stream and start down it. 
One mile and a half from the bridge we come to the 
Russell mine, owned by an English company, where 
seventy head of stamps are crushing the ore night and 
day. 

A mile below the Russell, and . one half mile from 
the river, is the Appalachian mine owned by another 
English company. At this place the mill (forty 
stamps) is not running but the pumps are lifting tlie 
water in a steady stream from one hundred and fift > 
feet below. Mr. Skirm, the superintendent, shows us 
through the mill and explains the inudus opeirDxli of 
treating the ore from the time it is blasted out until 
the gold is extracted and melted into bars. 

Leaving the Appalachian we pass by the Morris 
Mountain, Sally Coggins, Crump and Pass Harris 
mines. At the latter five miles above the mouth of 
the river we strike across the country for home leaving 
the mining section behind us and convinced that if w 
were moneyed men instead of poor newspaper scribes 
we would pitch our tent in this land of gold. 

Had this localit\' licrii ill California it would have 
been torn to pieces v i'iM s ago, but capital and enter- 
prise are sadlj' lack in-- in this part of the Old North 
State. 

Take for instance tlie LTwharrie river, a small stream 
one hundred feet wide, known to be rich in gold, the 
centre of this district, every vein in the section cross- 
ing it, e\t'i'\' foot of land on the slopes of the moun- 
tains which shut it in showing gold, and every stream 
emptying into it having been successfully worked for 



gold, and still the first thing towards working its bed 
has never been done. 

The day cannot be far distant when all these facts 
will be known to the outside world, and fortunes will 
be made by those who take advantage of it. 

OUK COMPANY'S CHANCES. 

Viewed by What Others Have Done. 

Aside from our other valual)le properties, our 
twenty some miles of tlie Uwharrie River sold to us 
on a guarantee of deposits of gold of from $i to 
$5 for every cubic yard of its bed and shores (the 
conformation of which is almost the same as that of 
the river mentioned in the article given below, and 
free from the disadvantages of a heavy impost to 
gravel and steep sides, and having in its favor an 
easy current, plenty of head of water, admirable 
ground for tailings, splendid situations for both cra- 
dling and hydraulicing,) we have a property that 
will yield not thousands hut millions of dollars in 
gold and thousands in pearls* and precious stones. 

The following article is from the New York Sun 
of Monday, September 28th, 1891. Note how 
quickly English capitalists take hold of our sources 
of wealth, that through ignorance or carelessness 
we neglect. 

News of tl»e Mining- World. 

TURNING A Big River From its Course to Find Gold — 
A Great Work of River Engineering— The En- 
terprise Rewarded by Rich Finds at Red Rock- 
Speculators Picking up Mines in the Black Hills 
—A Good Deal of Prospecting in New Idaho 
Districts. 

San Fuanoisco, Sept. 27.— Success seems a1 last to 
have crowned one of the most giganl ic mining enter- 
prises ever undertaken in California. Despatches 
from Oroville nay that the men at work in the Golden 
Gate and Golden Feather Mines in the bed of the 
Feather River in Butte County, which has been 
diverted from its course afteT' iiiaiix unsuccessful at- 
temi)ts to dam i1,are now luakiiiL; eiioi iiioiis clean- 
ups. Thc ura\el is litei-ally sitii 1 1 k Id with gold. A 
lai'ge force of men ai'c ciiiploNcd in moving the 
enoi-nious beds of m-a\ .>l and cleaning (he bed rock of 
jts-old. Tlie e\a< 1 anioiiiit that is bei iii; taken from 
the '.'ixxT bed is not iiiadi' know 11 to the i)ublic. It is 
the -•enei-al l)elief. l)asi'(i upon well-known facts, that 
iiiniiense (lUaiil it ies nl' i;-old are being taken out. At 
usual in sucli cases, the niaiwigeincnt prefers to keep 
the actual results secret. The mines are kept dry by 



* The bed of chis I'iver is filled with pearl-growing mus- 
sels, from the shells of many of which handsome pearls 
have been taken out. 



26 



enormous pumps, and elevators are kept running, 
while both day and night shifts are busy at Avork. The 
effect is striking at night when viewing the long line 
of electric lights where but a few weeks ago a great 
river was flowing. By these lights the miners are 
enabled to do as much work during the night as they 
can during the day. 

^^^hen the river bed was worked by the Argonauts 
the greatest difficulty was in draining it, and this was 
accomplished by a dam that was washed away at the 
first high water, so that all the work of one summer 
was lost before the mining season of another year 
began. In the Golden Gate and Golden Feather mine 
this was the smallest part of the labor undertaken. 
The river was successfully dammed last year, and the 
dam was made so strong and secure that it withstood 
the winter floods. Hence the stream was turned some 
weeks earlier this summer than ever before known. 
Had the manager found the river bed in the same 
condition as in 1867, 1857, and 1858, the task would have 
been easy ; but on turning the water from the channel 
a mightier problem was presented than that of drain- 
ing the channel. This was to remove the enormous 
quantity of gravel that filled the bed from twenty to 
forty feet deep. Had pioneer miners found this 
situation when they attempted to mine the Feather 
River they would have ceased work at once ; but 
Manager McLaughlin went to the task with the 
utmost energy. A large force of men was set to work 
with wheelbarrows and shovels to remove the mass of 
compact gravel, averaging twenty-five feet deep and 
from sixty to one hundred feet wide. The mines are 
in a narrow channel between high and precipitous 
hills, and there was no place to move the gravel. 
Hence it became necessary to dig down into the bed 
and pile the gravel on top of one portion. As soon as 
this excavation was made and bed rock on the bottom 
of the river was cleaned of its gold the great hole thus 
made was used for a dumping ground for the next 
section, and it is in this manner that the mines are 
now being worked. This is a slow and laborious pro- 
cess, for it is impossible to use water upon the gravel, 
for there is no place to wash it to. Teams cannot be 
used owing to the narrow and cramped situation of 
the mine in the canon, and this compels the handling 
of mimberless tons of gravel by hand labor. Owing to 
this slow process only a small portion of the mine has 
thus far been stripped of its gravel covering. 

In the Golden Feather mine the work will be done 
more expeditiously, for three hydraulic elevators will 
be placed in it to be run by water power, and the 
gravel can be lifted from the bed and moved very 
rapidly in large sluices which will cai*ry it down the 
river over the foot of the dam. A permanent dam is 
being built at the head of the Golden Feather minei 
which will last for many years, and as a gigantic canal 
instead of a flume will be used, it follows that work 
upon the mine will continue for a series of years. The 
elevators that will begin work this week will have all 
the power of moving the gravel that a hydraulic pipe 
would, so that the last named mine will be rapidly 
stripped of its gravel and the pay streak next to the 
bed rock will be reached. 



The Feather River has the richest gold bearing 
channel known in mining history in the early days of 
California. Oresville on its bank became the third 
town in California during the early gold mining 
period. Its annual output for years added many 
millions to the circulating medium of the world. 
Where the river could be turned vast treasures were 
obtained. In its bed were the famous Sailor Cape, 
Whiterock, and Union Cape mines. From Cape mine 
in a single day $36,000 was taken, and one band of 
auriferous gravel yielded $936. Owing to the lack of 
organized capital, engineering skill, and the enormous 
diflaculties to be encountered, some of tlie richest 
portions of the Feather River were left untouched. 
This was the case with that strip now known as the 
Golden Gate mine. 

The attention of Major Frank McLaughlin was called 
to this rich river bed. He became intei-ested, and 
prepared maps, plans, specifications and drawings of 
the river, and with these went to England, where two 
companies were by his efforts organized. The first is 
known as the Golden Gate, with a capital of $350,000, 
and the other is known as Golden Feather, with a 
capital of $1,000,000. Major McLaughlin was made 
resident manager of both mines, and for the past two 
years an immense amount of preparatory woi'k has 
been done. The portion of Feather River sought to'be 
worked was in a narrow canon. To reach it I'oadshad 
to be constructed at large expense, buildings erected, 
and tools and machinery provided. A flume sixty feet 
wide and 3,200 feet long was completed and the pumps 
were quickly rigged, but before the channel could be 
drained of its seepage water early and severe rains set 
in, the river became a raging torrent, and the dam 
crumbled to pieces in the flood, the flume washed 
away, and the Avhole labor for the season was irre- 
trievably lost. 

The company, nothing daimted, set to work the fol- 
lowing spring and a second dam was built, and every 
precaution was taken to make it stand during the 
winter. The estimated cost of this work was over 
$200,000. Everything now being shipshape, there is 
nothing to prevent the speedy consummation of the 
great enterprise. 



OUR PROPERTY AS OTHERS SAW IT. 

" Tahe for instance the T7wharrie Miver , a small 
stream 100 ftet wide, Jcnotvn to be rich in gold, 
the centre of this district; every vein in the 
section crossing it, every foot of land on the 
slopes of the mountains, which shut it in, show- 
ing gold, and every stream emptying into it, 
having been successfully tvorhed for gold and 
still the first thing totvards tvorJcing its bed has 
never been done. The day cannot be far distant 
tvhen all these facts ivill be known to the outside 
world, and fortxmes rvill be made by those who 
take advantage of it." 

By special Meport from actual visit of reporter 
of the Danvers tTournal, of February 20, 1990, 
tvho went over the ground. 



27 



COPY OF 

By N. 

Gentlemen : 

Prior to the discovery of gold in California. North 
Carolina's product of gold was the largest of any State 
in the Union, in fact, one-fifth of all the gold coined at 
the various mints in the United States was the product 
of this State, excepting, of course, the re-coining of 
foreign bullion and coins. 

In the State of North Carolina no County has been 
more productive of gold than Montgomery, along that 
section of the county drained by the Uwharrie River. 
Numerous creeks and branches empty into it, conveying 
the drift from the hill-sides. 



UWHARRIE RIVER REPORT. 

S. HIGGINS, Mining Engineer. 

gone by produced a large amount of gold by milling the 
ores occurring in the slate veins on the property ; the 
mine not being located on the branch proper but on a 
little prong of it flowing from the Northeast. 

Near by and above the Worth branch comes Cedar 
Creek. On a prong flowing into it is the recent extra- 
ordinary Tebe Sanders gold find which so far as has 
been developed, proves to be a rich surface deposit of 
gold resulting from the deeomposition of the slates and 
the disintegration of the outcrops of a number of small 
veins running through the formation. Many of the beds 
of grit along down this branch were rich in gold and 




THE ch:)OIv amalgamator with placer attachment. 

The above cut shows the new Placer Attachment which converts the Cook Amalgamator into a very valuable and 
efficient Placer Machine. This attachment is set on at the front end of the Amalgamator and is operated from the driv- 
ing spindle. It consists of a double screening cylinder, the inner screen of which has 3.% inch mesh and the outer screen 
a i-io mesh. The auriferous dirt runs directly from the sluice box into the cylinder of the Placer Attachment where it 
is screened down to i-io of an inch. The screenings passing directly into the cylinder of the Amalgamator while the 
refuse is carried through to the discharge spout by the spiral channels in the cylinder. Gold larger than one-tenth of an 
inch would be caught in the riffles of the sluice box. These are the machines to be used on our Uwharrie River property. 



Among the various creeks and branches beginning 
nearest its mouth on the Yadkin River, may be named 
Island Creek, along which many gravel beds are found, 
formed by the slow decomposition and drift from the 
hill-sides, which in places were concentrated bj' the 



paid to clean up with hand-rockers from year to year as 
they accumulated. This creek and many others going 
towards the head of the Uwharrie River were rich in 
gold, affording good sluice and rocker washings. 

Haw branch and the Buck Mt. on the East and the 



wash of the creek into rich deposits of gold ; a large i Cotton mine on the "West were all gold producers, 
portion of which occurred in nuggets from a few dwts. j Spencer Creek with Bunnell Mt. on its waters pro- 
to one, two and three lbs. in weight. The origin of most I duced a great deal of coarse gold, the surface to the top 



of this gold being from small surface veins running 
through the sedimentary slates and formations. 

Next in order is Dutchman Creek, on which rich dig- 
gings were found. 

Next going up the Uwharrie River is the Worth Branch, 
on which the old Worth mine is located, which in years 



of this mountain showing good pannings. 

On the West, McLeans Creek and the Pass Harris 
Mines produced more or less gold, and further up the 
river the Crump Mine for the time being, was a wonder- 
ful producer of gold, a great deal of wlxich was in 
nuggets of considerable size and value. 



^8 



On the East and still further up the river the Steele 
Mine, or Genessee, is located, which has produced a 
large amount of gold from the slate veins. The small 
branch running through this propertj' and the Pleas 
Sanders tract and mine, was rich in fine gold, and small 
pieces of the slates showing a great deal of coarse gold, 
indicating other veins on these properties that still 
remain undeveloped. 

Then as we progress towards the head of the Uwharrie 
River we find the Appalachian and the Russell mines, 
the latter being a large hill of partially decomposed 
slates through which numero*is small veins are running 
in almost every direction, creating an enormous mass of 
low grade ores. 

Many other localities might be named along the river 
from its source to its mouth, rich in gold, but enough 
has been stated to show that the Uwharrie passes 
through a section of the State especially rich in veins 
ores, and sedimentary formations from which the gold 
bearing beds in the creeks and branches have been 
formed, not so much by the force of waters, but beds of 
till or initial drift that have slowl}' moved down the 
liill-sides by successive freezing, thawing and gravita- 
tion aided by the moisture from snows and either gentle 
or pelting rains filling up the hollows, gulches and 
ravines, the drainage of Avhich, inci-eased by springs on 
the hill-sides, forming branches and creeks which have 
moved these gravel beds into the river as they have 
accumulated; the location and value of such accumula- 
tions changing as they concentrate along the wash of 
the streams from year to year ; storms which produce 
sudden rises in the creeks and branches during excep- 
tionally wet weather booming such deposits lower and 
lower down the streams and into the river, creating bars 
or sand bottoms above any obstruction to their flow or 
in their bends, such deposits may now be seen all along 
down the Uwharrie as it flows through one of the richest 
sections of the State in gold. 

The proposition to 2>rneticnlly trorJx- these Imrs 
and flats f if jtvoperly eonducted, must result in 
rich finds of ffold and develop many rich reins 
of precions metal other than. gold. This field of 
enterj^rise is open and a new one here to he 
developed. 

From what has been heretofore stated in regard 
to the value of all the streams emptying into the 
ITtrharrie and the rich mines on either side of the 
stream, that Jiave been tvorked to great profit, 
and rich and, extensive surface finds of gold as a 
Cmmp, J*ass Harris, 3Iorris Mountain, Hiin- 
nell Mountain, Te.be Sanders, Island Creeh^ 
Dutchman Creek and others, there can be no 
donbt that tJte bed of the Tlwharrie Jtiver is rich 
in gold, in fact, it ironld be nnreasonable to 
sujypose othcrtvise. 

The foregoing statement are the results of personal 
tests, examinations and observations. 

Respectfully submitted, 

[Signed] H. S. HIGGINS, M. E. 

Feb. 4th, 1890. 



WHAT THE "SALISBURY TRUTH*? 
^ SAYS OF MR. HIGGINS. 

Feb. 20th, 1890. 
'We are pleased to hear that Mr. N. S. Higgins. M. E., 
has been selected to open up the Nott Gold Mine in 
Union County, S. C. Mr. Higgins is a thoroughly equip- 
ped miner, a man of much intelligence and practical 
experience in the mining business, and is probably the 
best informed expert in the South, having worked, 
prospected and managed mines in every section of the 
country. The Nott mine was sold by Mr. J. M. Hadden 
to a rich syndicate in Philadelphia a short time ago and 
they will proceed to develop it. With Higgins at the 
helm, if there are not favorable evidences of great value 
within a reasonable time we shall begin to donbt their 
existence. If there is gold there Higgins will find it and 
bring it out." 

WHAT EDISOiV, THE GREAT ELECTRI- 
CIAN AlVI* INVENTOR OF THE 
PHONOGRAPH, SAYS: 

l*rof. Edison has engaged rooms in Charlotte 
for one year. lie says he came here becaitse he 
considers North Carolina the richest mineral 
country in the world. — Carolina Watchman, Feb. 
20, 1890. 




SOLD FOR $30,000. 
Latest Iroiii Montgomery. 



We learn from jutrties from Montgomery 
county, who were in town a few days ago. that 
the gold fever is still Jt igh and numbers of ex- 
perts from the North are in the ZTwhavrie river 
section ready to gobble up everything that is 
found at good jtrices. Several good prospects 
have been opened lately. Among them, one on 
Geo. Henderson's land, found by Gabriel Harris, 
of Eldorado ; this find is a small quartz vein, 
ver rich and onli/ about three feet from the 
Uwharrie river and running across that stream 
just beloiv tJie Saunders tract. 

It had. only Just been, uncovered lehen Mr. Cole- 
man, of Thomasville, arrived, on the scene and 
took a ninety-days option on, it for $30,000.— 
Carolina Watchman, Feb. 27, 1890. 



FROM THE STATE GEOLOGICAL, 
REPORT. 

In Montgomery county tlie singular concre- 
tionary, conglomeritic, quartzite shist, which 
contains Emmons's palteotrocJiis, i^ gold-bear- 
ing over wide tracts of country. This fact was 
noticed by I>r. Emmons. But a still more strik- 
ing and significant fact is, that a large part 
of the gold of Montgomery, Davidson and Ran- 
dolph counties, on the tvaters of the Yadkin, and 
Tlwharrie rivers, is contained, in ledges of tJiin- 
bedded quartz slates, often jtyrojihyllitic or 
feldspathic, and frequently scaly and micaceous. 

Tlie range of noted ininei^, extending 
twenty miles nortliward from near the 
month of the Uwharrie river, including tlie 



29 



Russell, Beck, liaugliliii, Jones and otliiers, 
come under tlie description just given. 

These slates, shules, ov scliists, stand almost 
vertical, and are generally decomposed to a con- 
siderable depth, 20, 40 or 50 feet.—lteprinted 
from the Transact ions of the Am. Inst. ofMinimj 
Engineers, Vol. X. 18'62, page 475. 



$3,000 AT A double: blast. 

Senator Hearst's Opinion. 

'■• From two blasts ive are told that not less 
than $2,000 worth of pure gold nuggets were 



quickly gathered ttp, and this does not include 
the gold that was yet to be separated from the 
quartz. * * * * 

* * * * Such a mine — a veritable bonanza in- 
deed — as this has proved to be naturally creates 
excitement. * * * * 

* * * * l)ut those gentlemen frotn the Northwest 
tvho were there Tuesday, were xterfectly as- 
tounded, and Senator Hearst was heard to say 
that he had seen the rich mines of California 
hut til is ivas tlie richest !> old-deposit lie liad 
ever seen." — From the Carolina WatcJiman , 
Jan. 20, 1800. 



PART IV. 



RESUME. I 

The Company owns gold and mineral land in four 
of the richest gold producing counties in North 
Carolina. {Rutherford, Montgomery, McDowell and 
Davidson). 

The Company owns nearly 20 miles of the Uwhar- 
rie River surrounded by gold mines, crossed by 
gold vems. surrounded by mountains whose sides 
yield abundance of gold and whose bed and shores 
yield from $1 to S5 in pure gold for every cubic 
yard of sand or gravel. 

The Company will work this by Hydraulic Machin- 
ery, Cradles, Rockers, Hand Washing, Amalga- 
mation, etc., and at certain favorable points will turn 
the stream into a new channel leaving the immense 
wealth of the old bed uncovered and easy to work. 
{See pages 23 and 24.) 

The Company has succeeded in beating off English 
and foreign capital and has secured the most valu- 
able gold-mining property in the United States 
to-day. 

The Company by purchase and option controlling 
large tracts of the very finest mineral land in these 
counties must necessarily, sooner or later, exhaust 
its free claims and the value of the Reserved Claims 
held for the benefit of the Company and its stock- 
holders will increase immensely in value as the 
adjoining claims are worked and developed. Further- 
more, we can give away but a limited number of 
claims when the immense demand is considered, 
and when that day comes we will not sell a share of 
stock for less than $1,000. Nor would any stock- 
holder be wise to sell as soon as the rise in value 
begins. It therefore behooves every wise business 



man and investor to take hold at once, and Agents 
who are to profit by our offer have only a limited time 
in which to do it. 

1 . Shares of Stock are worth $10 and will not be 
sold to any one for a dollar less than this price. 

2. Each person on payment of $1 0 receives one 
full paid, non-assessable share of stock, and to 
each one is given a Free Mining Right or Claim. 

3 Every lOth Claim is reserved by the Company 
for the benefit of all its stockholders who participate 
in the profits of same whether by mining or by sale 
at time of increased values. 

4. All dividends will be paid in gold. 

5. Aside from the value of the Free Claims the 
shareholder has a better and safer investment than 
Government Bonds, and besides stands a chance to 
find minerals or gems of the utmost value on his 
claim. 

6. Mechanics and artisans of all kinds will be 
given the first chance in work to be done. 

7. The Company will advance money to build 
houses, to construct a branch railway, to aid in the 
purchase of mining tools and machinery, to sink 
shafts, deflect water-ways, etc., etc. 

How to Secure Shares and Claims. 

So liberal is our offer and so brilliant the pros- 
pects of the Company that our stock and Free 
Claims are selling in large and small blocks very 
fast. Hence if you want one or more shares and 
the Free claims that go with them you must give 
the matter your immediate attention. 

%I0 purchases one share of stock and entitles the 
holder to one Free Claim. 



30 



$20 purchases two shares of stock and entitles 
the holder to two Free Claims. 

%50 purchases five shares of stock and entitles 
the holder to five Free Claims. 

$100 purchases ten shares of stock and entitles 
the holder to ten Free Claims. 

$500 purchases fifty shares of stock and entitles 
the holder to fifty Free Claims. 

$1 ,000 purchases one hundred shares of stock 
and entitles the holder to one hundred Free Claims. 

$5,000 purchases five hundred shares of stock 
and entitles the holder to five hundred Free Claims. 

If you haven't the ready money to pay in full for 
Stock at once, send $2.00 for each share you want 
and we will hold them for 30 days for you during 
which time you can pay the balance. 

Thus if you want to secure one share and one 
Free Claim send $2.00. 

If you want to secure five shares and five Free 
Claims send $10 00. 

If you want to secure twenty shares and twenty 
Free Claims send $40.00. 

If you want to secure one hundred shares and 
one hundred Free Claims send $200.00. 

You can pay the balance any time within 30 days 
and we will forward the Stock to you as soon as it 
is paid. Meantime we send you a receipt with the 
seal of the Company and signed by the President 
and Treasurer. 

Poverty is a Crime. 

With the innumerable opportunities to make 
money and make it honestly in this age of advance 
and invention, discoveries and new developments, 
poverty is in many instances a crime. A man has 
no right to bury his talent in a napkin when, by 
judicious investment and proper, intelligent care, 
he can double and quadruple it and make his life 
one of ease arid comfort, instead of toil, drudgery 
and hardship ; and not only bless himself but his 
family as well. 



The financial history of this country is filled with 
instances of plough-boys, farmers, clerks, laborers, 
mechanics and the like rising by just such procedure 
from poverty to opulence. Note the most pertinent 
cases of Mackay, O'Brien, Flood, Stanford, Hunt- 
ington, Vanderbilt, Gould, < Rockefeller, Flagler, 
Havermeyer, Spreckles, etc. 

Combining intelligence and perseverance with 
the motto of " nothing risked nothing gained,''^ they 
have from the very smallest beginnings become 
millionaires. "What one man has done another 
can do" is true, but to do it he cannot suck his 
thumbs and look at a dollar a thousand times before 
he decides to invest it, or worse yet, spend every 
penny as fast as he earns it on personal gratification, 
and perhaps dissipation. " Sow now and reap 
later " should be his motto. 

Be active, wise, intelligent, industrious ; lookout 
for every chance in life and seize fickle fortune be- 
fore she eludes your grasp. We do not counsel the 
farmer, blacksmith, clerk, store-keeper, waiter, 
machinist, laborer, etc., to give up good, steady, 
paying work and rush off to new fields, but we do 
advise him to save his money and invest it when he 
sees a good thing, and when wealth, little or much, 
comes to him, to again double and quadruple it at 
every opportunity. 

There is no better or safer investment to-day than 
the Capital Stock of the North Carolina Gold Min- 
ing and Bullion Company, as is attested on all sides 
by newspapers, mining experts, mine superintend- 
ents, business men, senators, county officials, sur- 
veyors, assayers, mining engineers, lawyers, bank- 
ers, etc. 

The stock is now at par ($10 a share). Read, 
study and verify the mass of facts and overwhelm- 
ing proofs given in the preceding pages and when 
thoroughly satisfied send at once for as many shares 
as you or you and your neighbors can handle, and 
share in what is going to be the greatest gold bo- 
nanza of the century. 



18 Wall Street, New York. 



Direct commuQication by Gold and Stock Exchange Ticker with all Stock Exchanges. 




i 



» 



No. 18 Wall Street, New York. 

• 

I^Hce of Shares for 90 Days^ $10. 



A free Mining Claim given with each share purchased. 

The Company reserves every tenth claim for the benefit of non-working share- 
holders, and to aid in the erection of quartz crushers, stamping mills, separators, 
sluice-ways, houses, forge, shaftings and test wells. 

Each Claim-holder may sell his claim if he so desires, or if he or she cannot 
work a claim, the Company^s agents will do it for him at actual cost. 

One-tenth of the gross value of all finds of gold and precious stones found on 
free claims by claim-holders, must be paid to the Company for the benefit of its 
stockholders as soon as the assay or sale of same is made. 

The price of shares will probably be advanced in 90 days. 

The Company does not bind itself to give a Claim with every share of stock 
after 90 days. 

Each Claim will be duly surveyed and registered, and will be the absolute 
property of the shareholder for fifty years whether he sells his stock or not. 



LEGAL DECISION. 

Succession of Interest in Mining- Claims.— An interest claimed by an intestate 
in a mining claim at the time of his death is an interest in real estate, and descends to his 
heirs, who alone can maintain an action to quiet title thereto. The right to maintain sucli 
action is not conferred upon tlie administrator of the intestate by Rev. St. U. S. sections 28'22, 
2824, providing that the locators of mining claims, " their heirs and assigns," so long as they 
comply with the laws of the United States, and with the State and local regulations not in con- 
flict therewith, shall have the exclusive right of possession and enjoyment of all the surface 
included within the lines of their locations, and that, upon failure to comply with the con- 
ditions as to annual labor, the ground shall be open to re-location, provided that the original 
locators, their heirs, assigns, or "legal representatives," have not resumed work upon such 
claim after failure, and before such location. Under Act Cong. May 10, 1872, declaring that 
only those who are citizens of the United States, or having properly declared their intention 
to become such, can either locate or purchase mineral lands, an allegation of citizenship, or its 
equivalent, is necessary to constitute a good complaint in a proceeding to determine adverse 
mining claims preliminary to the issuance of a patent tlieref or. 

Keeler v. Trueman, Supreme Court of Colorado, 25 Pac. Rep. 311. 

(H^" If you want a share or shares of this stock and the Free Mining Claim that goes 
with it, thereby giving you the triple chance to secure a fortune by heavy dividends, sale of 
your claim to adjacent claim-owners at a heavy advance, or to the Company, and the chance 
of finding thousands in gold and diamonds in your own claim, send on immediately, for the 
shares are going fast. 

$2 secures you an Option. Send tliat AT ONCE and perfect your chance. The other 
$S you can send any time within thirty days. 



